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COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ 



o 



Columbus and Beatriz 



a jBJoljel 



BY 



CONSTANCE GODDARD DU BOIS 

author of "martha corey, a tale of the salem 
witchcraft" 







CHICAGO 

A. C. McCLURG AND COMPANY 

1802 



V 



^0 



J"" 



Copyright, 
By a. C. McClurg and Co. 

A. D. 1892. 



All rights reserved. 



TO MY A UNT, 
MRS. MADELINE VINTON DAHLGREN, 

WHOSE KIND INTEREST IN MY LITERARY WORK HAS BEEN 
AN INSPIRATION, 

Wm "i^oofe i^ affectionately 2^ebicated. 



PREFACE. 



THE object of this work is to attempt the 
reparation of an injustice which history 
has done to a noble and long-suffering woman. 
Beatriz Enriquez has been denied her lawful 
position as the wife of Columbus by writers 
from Humboldt and Irving to the tourist who 
publishes his impressions of a few weeks' so- 
journ in Spain; and the illicit connection of 
Columbus with a beautiful lady of Cordova has 
been expatiated upon in every tone of impartial 
narrative and jesting allusion. The slander is, 
however, of modern origin. Although Colum- 
bus was loaded with calumny during his life- 
time, no one dreamed of denying his connection 
by marriage with the noble house of Arana, or 
of questioning the legitimacy of his second son, 
Fernando. 

It was not till an obscure lawyer at a later 
time raised a legal quibble about the matter for 
the purpose of gaining a suit for a client, that 
the idea was suggested ; and that it was repug- 
nant to the facts of history is evident, since the 



Vlll PREFACE. 

unscrupulous attorney lost his case, and the 
affair remained forgotten until, in 1805, Na- 
pione, followed by Sportorno and Navarrete, 
revived the unwarranted assumption with eager- 
ness, as throwing a new hght upon the character 
of Columbus. 

The only apparent support to this theory of 
an illicit connection is the fact that Columbus 
in his will mentions Beatriz Enriquez by name 
without adding the title of wife, and adds that 
in recommending her to the care of his heir he 
eases his conscience, since he is under great ob- 
ligation to her, " the reason of which," as he 
says, '' it is not expedient to mention here." 

Out of this weak material the web of false- 
hood has been spun. Without following the 
discussion in its full extent, the argument of 
common-sense may be applied in Beatriz's jus- 
tification. It is known that her two brothers 
(some say a nephew and a brother) sailed with 
Columbus upon two of his voyages in a distin- 
guished position of trust under the Admiral. 
Would the sons of a noble house thus condone 
their sister's dishonor? 

The mystery involved in Columbus's allusion 
to Beatriz without giving her the title of wife is 
supplemented by the singular fact that in the 
most important crises of his life she was absent 
from his side or unmentioned. The theory 
upon which the following story is constructed 



PREFACE. IX 

offers an explanation which is maintained to be 
more deserving of credence than that of Spor- 
torno, since it fits every subsequent event in 
the life of Columbus with the congruity of a 
historical fact. It is not the reputation of Co- 
lumbus that is at stake. History, while accept- 
ing his offence, has readily excused it, — " He 
was a man of his times," forsooth ; but the 
beautiful young Beatriz Enriquez, whose life 
linked to his was undoubtedly a sad one, 
should be delivered from unmerited reproach; 
and the open-minded student of history as 
well as the enthusiastic champion of slandered 
innocence should unite in rendering a tardy 
justice to her memory. 

The motif of this book was gained from 
Roselly de Lorgues's Life of Columbus, which 
has been, for the most part, closely followed 
in the relation of facts and the sequence of 
events. 



C. G. DuB. 



Waterbury, Conn., 

February i8, 1892. 



CONTENTS. 



Chapter Page 

I. In the Cathedral 13 

II. Heart to Heart 22 

III. An Offer of Marriage 32 

IV. The Crystal of Ben Hamet ... 40 

V. The Mendicant Friar 51 

VI. The Psyche Ring 62 

VII. Francisco Ximenes 69 

VIII. Light and Shadow 78 

IX. An Aftermath 88 

X. An ApP/EAL 99 

XI. At the Siege of Baza 107 

XII. A Silent Oracle 115 

XIII, The San Cristoval 124 

XIV. A Vow to Love 135 

XV. The Triumph of the Cross .... 145 

XVI. Two Voices 151 

XVII. The Path of Duty 157 

XVIII. The Storm 168 



Xll CONTENTS. 

Chapter Page 

XIX. Through Deep Waters 183 

XX. The Triumph 200 

XXI. A Message 213 

XXII. Plot and Counterplot 225 

XXIII. Princes' Favor 232 

XXIV. The Bounds of Patience .... 242 
XXV. Time's Changes 256 

XXVI. In Chains 268 

XXVII. The Quest of the Sepulchre . . 277 

XXVIII. Love Triumphant 288 



COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 



CHAPTER I. 

IN THE CATHEDRAL. 

CORDOVA, on an August day, dazzling with sun- 
shine, palpitating with heat, seemed to a 
stranger who trod its streets one afternoon in the 
year i486, a city of the dead, so deserted were its 
thoroughfares. An ox-cart laden with country produce 
passed now and then, with straining ropes and lond- 
creaking axles, making an unwonted noise on the 
clean, rough-paved streets. On the fashionable prom- 
enade by the gently flowing Guadalquivir, where later 
a gay throng would assemble, a solitary fisherman was 
the only moving figure, as he went with line and 
basket to seek the shadow of the bridge where he 
could carry on his indolent occupation with the least 
effort. 

In the cathedral square, at most hours, a stream of 
worshippers, entering and departing, made a continual 
movement. At this time they came and went un- 
noticed, and few in number. The fountains that had 
once been used for Mohammedan ablutions plashed, 
as of old, in their worn marble basins ; the arched col- 
onnades and the thick shade of the orange-trees in the 



14 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

enclosed gardens invited to repose ; but it was the 
cathedral itself that drew the stranger's footsteps with 
magnetic attraction. Built a Mohammedan mosque, 
it expressed a conception so noble that it stirred the 
heart of the Christian who gave little credit to the in- 
fidels' devotion. The ambition of Abd-ur-rhaman, 
the khalif, had been to make it the shrine of the Mo- 
hammedan faith, a western Mecca. Its vast caverns 
of shade, its countless pillars and arches, suggested a 
forest turned to stone. Its vistas stretching in every 
direction gave the idea of infinite extent. The ranks 
of gleaming pillars of porphyry and many-colored 
marble might lead the worshipper's footsteps through 
an endless round of adoration. Prayer was here the 
instinct of the soul. 

The stranger flung himself upon his knees before a 
shrine of the Virgin, which, with its crudely colored 
panels and filigree ornamentation, looked out of place 
amid the simple harmonies of the Moorish architec- 
ture. To him it was the dwelling-place of the pres- 
ence that animated the whole. He prayed with the 
fervor of one who has the habit of spiritual commu- 
nion, the power to see visions and hear voices, the per- 
ception of heights and depths of immaterial realities 
denied to ordinary men. He was lost to outward 
circumstance until aroused from his devotions by an 
obtrusive sound, a woman's sob. 

He rose and looked about him. By the same shrine, 
not far from him in the shadow of a pillar, a young 
girl knelt in prayer as fervent as his own had been. 
Her dark blue mantle had slipped from her shoulders, 
and lay upon the pavement. Her enveloping veil 
was thrown back, disclosing a youthful face of wonder- 



IN THE CATHEDRAL. 1 5 

ful beauty, in spite of the sorrow that forced tears 
from her eyes. She clasped her rosary with its cross 
to her breast, while she cast an appealing glance up- 
ward to the unresponsive waxen countenance of the 
Virgin's image. 

" Hear me. Holy Mother," she said ; " hear my 
prayer." At this moment her eyes fell upon the 
stranger who stood near. She started with a move- 
ment of alarm, clutching at her veil and mantle with 
fingers still wound within her rosary. He gently 
placed his hand upon her shoulder, as one would 
soothe a frightened child. 

" I doubt not your prayer is heard and will be an- 
swered," he said. 

The young girl rose with a look of wonder and rev- 
erence fixed upon the man, whose face in its mild 
benignity was like that of a pictured saint, and 
whose vigorous manly form expressed energy and 
strength. 

" How can you know? " she asked, with a trustful 
appeal in voice and eyes which the stranger answered 
with a smile. 

" I am no prophet," he said ; " but your soul was 
near mine as we prayed. Something assures me that 
your petition will be fulfilled, as mine will also in 
God's own time. I am patient, and can wait in 
hope." 

" I must go," said the young girl, with a slight 
blush, as she arranged her mantle. " My nurse will 
soon be seeking me. I told her to follow me in an 
hour. I wished to pray alone, I was so unhappy." 

" Tell me your grief, and I may be able to aid you," 
said the stranger. '^ Let us sit upon a bench outside 



1 6 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

yonder beneath the orange-trees. Your nurse will find 
you there." 

His voice and manner inspired confidence. His 
hair was streaked with gray, and there were lines of 
age upon his brow. He was a Christian, for he had 
prayed with reverence and devotion. The young girl 
seated herself beside him on a marble bench in the 
shade near a fountain. 

" I was praying that the Blessed Virgin would grant 
me escape from a hateful marriage," she said in a fal- 
tering voice. " For my father's sake I would obey 
him in everything but this. I cannot respect Don 
Francisco, who is old, decrepit, selfish, jealous, and 
tyrannical. It would be a mockery to take the solemn 
vows. Yet my father's will is strong, and I am weak 
and young. The Blessed Virgin alone can help me." 

" You love, I doubt not, a younger man," said the 
stranger. 

" No, I love no man save my father and my broth- 
ers," she answered frankly, lifting her clear, grave eyes 
to his face. " I know not what love is, as the poets 
sing it. It seems to me a foolish thing." 

" Some day you will learn the secret, which is both 
foolish and wise," said the stranger, looking at her with 
a smile. 

The bright light of the unclouded day brought out 
the absolute perfection of her complexion, the fault- 
less beauty of her features, the charm and freshness of 
her youth. The leaves of the orange-trees stirred 
gently. The soft languor of the Spanish air disposed 
the mind to tender fancies. A breath of his lost 
youth seemed to the stranger to be wafted with the 
breeze from the Guadalquivir. 



IN THE CATHEDRAL. 1 7 

The young girl respected her companion's reverie. 
She looked with sympathy at his melancholy face, 
which interested her strangely. The lines of his 
mouth were capable of expressing the gentlest emotion 
or the most inflexible resolve. He was a man to whom 
a child would run for love and protection. His arms 
were strong, his heart pure. No doubt he was a good 
husband. His wife need fear no unkindness, no jeal- 
ousy, nor angry reproaches. 

" Where is your home? " she asked at last. " Your 
accent is not that of a CastiHan or an Aragonese. Are 
you a stranger in Cordova? " 

"I am a stranger, and I have no home," he an- 
swered. " I am a widower and alone, without money 
and without friends. My little son is left behind me 
to be educated by the good friars of La Rabida, near 
Palos. I came from thence hither, to seek the favor 
of the king, hoping that the prior of Prado would ad- 
vance me to his notice by virtue of a letter I brought 
to him. Foolish hope ! He refuses me the honor of 
his own countenance. For a week I have waited in 
his anteroom amid a crowd of suppliants. The prior 
is busy. All others win his attention before me. No 
matter. Patience will unlock the door at which 
haste and distrust beat in vain. God fulfils his 
purposes." 

The young girl's hand stole from the folds of her 
mantle. With an impulse of generous pity, she ex- 
tended it to the stranger. 

" Accept me for your friend," she said. 

** Beautiful child," he exclaimed, as he took the 
offered hand, smiling upon her with a sudden light in 
his eyes which gave his face for the time a look of 



1 8 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

youth, " we are both servants of the Virgm, who 
received our united prayers at the same moment 
into her infinite heart of love. Such virtue endures 
from that companionship that we can never be as 
strangers to each other. A celestial tie binds our 
souls." 

Both faces glowed with emotion which a spectator 
could not interpret, — Don Francisco Hernandez less 
than another, since jealousy led him astray. Unseen 
by the two chance companions, an elderly woman and 
a gray- haired man had entered the garden and ap- 
proached them. 

" Dona Beatriz," called the woman, anxiously, 
" your father is expecting us ! Let us make haste ! 
Don Francisco came with me — " 

" To see with my own eyes my undoing ! " inter- 
rupted the old man, in a voice hoarse with rage. 
" So, my pretty Senorita, you receive your lovers by 
secret appointment in the very shelter of the church ! 
Go back to your father, and tell him I will have none 
of you ! " 

Beatriz colored with the anger of wounded 
pride. 

"You wrong this lady ! " cried the stranger. *' She 
is as good as she is fair. I am a new-comer in Cor- 
dova, and have met her this hour for the first 
time." 

" Yet you hold her hand, and look upon her with 
the eyes of admiration unrebuked ! " cried Don Fran- 
cisco. " Fie, fie, worse and worse ! " 

The old nurse wrung her hands. 

" Explain yourself to Don Francisco, and entreat 
his pardon, Senorita ! " she said in a trembling voice. 



IN THE CATHEDRAL. 19 

" It is too great a calamity that you should thus 
offend him." 

Beatriz rose in the dignity of her stainless youth. 

"I have nothing to explain," she said. "This 
man has spoken the truth. I will go home with you, 
Teresa." 

"Alas, alas, you will lose your husband by this 
chance ! " exclaimed Teresa. " A man so rich you 
will never find again. Bend your pride, and ask his 
pardon." 

" I have offended in nothing," said Beatriz, sim- 
ply. " He should ask my pardon for his unjust 
suspicions." 

She walked towards the gateway with the move- 
ment of a queen. Don Francisco ground his teeth 
in rage. 

" It is you who are to blame for this," he exclaimed, 
glaring at the stranger, and clutching his cane with 
his thin jewelled fingers, as if he longed to vent his 
anger in blows, but was restrained in spite of himself 
by the calm superiority of the man before him, which 
awed the choleric old man in spite of the threadbare 
and travel- stained clothes the stranger wore. 

" Who are you ? Where do you come from ? What 
are you doing here? " he added. 

"My name is Cristoval Colon," 1 responded the 
stranger. " I came of late from the sea-coast to your 
city, where I have a petition to urge upon their high- 
nesses the king and queen." 

1 Pronounced Co-lone'. The Spanish form of the name of 
Christopher Columbus is used here and elsewhere throughout 
the book, as being more consistent than its English equivalent 
with the local coloring of the story. 



20 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

" Aha, I have heard of you ! " exclaimed Don 
Francisco. " A threadbare ItaHan adventurer ; a 
dancer of attendance in anterooms; a hanger-on 
of the court who never advances beyond the squires' 
quarters ; a mad dreamer of absurdities which every 
one derides, such as seeking cities of gold in the 
boiling torrid zone or through the abysses of the 
whirlpool. Oh, yes, I have heard of you, Seilor 
Court -jester ! Had I known it was you whom I be- 
lieved my rival, I should have been moved to laugh- 
ter rather than to anger, which too much honors your 
pretensions." 

The color deepened in Colon's face. 

"Your age insures you my forbearance," he 
said. 

"Age!" exclaimed Don Francisco, indignantly, 
while the veins on his forehead swelled ominously, 
and he felt a choking sensation in his throat. His 
physician had warned him against the effects of ex- 
cessive anger. " As for age, I am scarce older than 
yourself. Remember that I forbid you ever again to 
approach the lady who is my betrothed," he added. 
" She is of the highest rank. How dare you, a 
low-born wanderer, seat yourself familiarly in her 
presence? " 

" I acknowledge no nobility higher than that of a 
soul at peace with God," replied Colon. " I, who 
may commune with the Virgin and the saints, may 
talk to a simple young girl, whatever her rank, on 
terms of equality, nay, of superiority. ^My right to 
offer her marriage — if such a wish occurred to me — 
is as good as yours, Seiior Don Francisco." 

He rose as he spoke, bowed with grave composure. 



IN THE CATHEDRAL. 2i 

and left the garden without a look behind. He was 
vaguely conscious that the old man had shaken his 
cane and gasped for utterance in an access of sudden 
fury. He did not see Don Francisco stagger, clutch 
at his throat, and fall dying in an apoplectic seizure 
upon the grass beneath the orange-trees. 



CHAPTER II. 



HEART TO HEART. 



HTHE sudden death of Don Francisco Hernandez 
-*■ was the talk of the day in Cordova. He was 
reported to be immensely rich ; and his position as 
the favored suitor of a celebrated beauty had won 
him the envy of many younger men, in spite of the 
fact that the bride was portionless. It was known 
that the wealth of the Enriquezes had been squan- 
dered by the present head of the family in an attempt 
to solve the problem of the philosopher's stone. The 
furnace and the crucible had melted and dissipated 
into smoke the value of many a treasure and family 
heirloom. 

Don Fernando Enriquez was prostrated by the 
blow which deprived him of his wealthy son-in-law. 
He lay in a darkened room, and his daughter devo- 
tedly administered to his wants. It was the day of 
the funeral; and the reports brought in from time 
to time by Teresa, the old nurse and housekeeper, 
were received with new groans by the sufferer. 

" Keep up a good heart, Seiior," said Teresa, en- 
couragingly. '■'■ I know of more than one young gal- 
lant who is only waiting for Don Francisco to be cold 
in the ground to offer himself as your son-in-law. It 
is not for nothing that our Sefiorita has been called 
the queen of beauty in Cordova. Young Garcia de 



HEART TO HEART. 2$ 

Silva has been deep in love with her since he met 
her at Don Aguilar's wedding. I never see him on 
the street but he makes some attempt to converse 
with me. I shall no longer put on a long face, and 
slip by him as if I were blind and deaf. He is not 
as rich as Don Francisco, — Heaven rest his soul ! — 
but he is a proper man and a generous. Some 
day, I doubt not, he will be high in favor at 
the court." 

" Speak not to me of that young spendthrift ! " 
commanded Don Fernando ; " and do not take it 
upon thyself to choose a husband for my daughter, or 
to encourage the penniless young nobles who write 
sonnets in praise of her eyes and her hair. I will 
have none of them, dost thou understand me? A 
man of age and discretion, who has wealth and knows 
how to keep what he has, — such is my choice. Find 
me one if thou canst." 

" They do not grow on every bush," said Teresa, 
pursing her lips and shrugging her shoulders, " and 
something is better than nothing." 

" Quote me no proverbs," said Enriquez, "but go 
dress thy mistress for the funeral. Let her wear her 
heaviest veil, and lean on her brother Rodrigo's arm. 
In my absence, he is the head of the family. My son 
Pedro may stay with me." 

" I cannot go, my father," said Beatriz, in a fal- 
tering voice. " Let Pedro take my place, and let me 
remain at home with you." 

" She has heard the silly talk of the maids, and 
it has frightened her," explained Teresa, officiously. 
" The ignorant folk mamtain that Don Francisco was 
murdered, since his forehead was cut as if by a blow 



2 4 COL UMB US A ND BEA TRIZ. 

from a stick, though the fall alone might account for 
that." 

"Why hast thou not told me?" asked Enriquez, 
starting. 

" Because the priests say there is no word of truth 
in the story, and my lady bade me not mention it to 
you." 

" It is not true ; it cannot be tnie," said Beatriz. 
"Who could wish his death?" 

" Many a one who loved you," muttered Teresa, 
under her breath. 

" Then why dost thou fear to go to the church, my 
daughter?" demanded Enriquez. 

Beatriz hesitated. 

" She is still thinking of the story of the maids," 
interposed Teresa. " They say that the murderer — 
if murder there was — will be discovered by his pres- 
ence in the crowd about the bier, for at his approach 
the wound on the dead man's brow will bleed afresh." 

" No doubt such things have been," said Enriquez ; 
" but it is not to be beHeved that a man so high in 
rank could come to his end by foul means unavenged. 
The city would be aroused. The magistrates and 
clergy would take it up. Since it is only the voice of 
servants that deals in this foolish gossip, rebuke it 
and silence it, my daughter. Go to the church, as is 
thy place, and pray for the soul of the departed." 

Beatriz had been much shocked by Don Francisco's 
sudden death. She saw him constantly before her as 
she had left him in the cathedral garden in angry 
altercation with a stranger. What had been the re- 
sult of that interview? Were the stranger's hands 
reddened with blood ? Did his forehead bear unseen 



HEART TO HEART. 25 

the mark of Cain? If so, she was the unwilUng 
cause of a foul murder. It was this thought that agi- 
tated her, and banished rest, filhng her fancy with 
horrible imaginings. She was unwilling to believe 
evil of the man with the saintly face who had pre- 
dicted the answer to her prayer which had been thus 
tragically fulfilled. It was as if she had prayed un- 
knowingly for the death of Don Francisco. A shadow 
of guilt darkened the sanctuary of her holiest thoughts. 
Had that moment of spiritual communion before the 
Virgin's shrine been imaginary ? Was the man with 
whose heart her own had been fused and blended in 
angelic friendship by a spark from a divine altar, — 
was he less pure and noble than she had imagined? 

Beatriz lived a secluded life, her father being of 
late unwilling that she should mingle freely in the gay 
society of the city by which she was admired and 
courted ; poverty being his plea for withdrawing her 
from it, together with the invalid state of his health, 
which demanded the sacrifice of her time and strength 
in his serv'ice. She had never known the careless 
freedom of a happy girlhood ; nor, among her many 
admirers, had she found one who could teach her the 
meaning of love. Her father contrived that the ex- 
pression of their feelings should be limited to a dis- 
tant homage of compliments, looks, and sighs ; and 
Beatriz, having neither vanity nor coquetry, was quite 
unmoved by this. Friendship was her highest ideal. 
If she could have admired and respected Don Fran- 
cisco, she would have been willing to become his 
wife. 

Young Garcia de Silva was the most ardent and 
daring of her lovers. No repulse discouraged him. 



26 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

He delighted in overcoming the obstacles that were 
persistently placed in his path. In time his youthful 
courage, reinforced by his handsome figure, might 
have won his way to Beatriz's shy favor ; but Teresa, 
recognizing the extreme danger of incurring the rich 
Don Francisco's wrath, took every means to preju- 
dice her mistress against the young man. Since 
Don Francisco's death, Teresa had suddenly changed 
her tone. She wearied her young mistress with 
praises of De Silva, which were honestly given in 
exchange for the golden bribes which she no longer 
refused to receive from him. She carried his letters 
and messages, and smuggled his valuable gifts into 
the house, only to meet with stern reproof and rejec- 
tion from Beatriz. 

"A week ago, Teresa, thou didst represent Don 
Garcia as a wild young libertine ; now thou dost de- 
clare him to be possessed of all the virtues," Beatriz 
said severely. 

" He has always been virtuous, but I have not 
known him," Teresa replied. " We cannot credit all 
we hear. He is as handsome as a picture, and as 
brave as the Cid. When the period of mourning is 
passed, you will meet him again, and you will believe 
what I say." 

These incongruous declarations did not tend to 
relieve the trouble of Beatriz's mind. No prodigy 
occurred at the funeral, which took place with pomp 
and ceremony in the cathedral ; but Beatriz looked 
in vain among the crowd for the melancholy face and 
inspired eyes of the Italian. 

A month later she met him upon the street as she 
was going for prayers to the cathedral with Teresa at 



HEART TO HEART 27 

her side, the latter bearing a silken bag containing a 
heavy wax-candle, which was to be bestowed in favor 
of the repose of Don Francisco's soul. Beatriz paused 
and beckoned with an imperious gesture. Teresa 
frowned as the stranger approached. Don Garcia's 
ducats lay heavy in her pocket, yet she dared not 
interfere when Beatriz's face wore a certain look of 
fixed resolve. Colon smiled as one does to greet a 
child. Then he saw the mourning veil, and his face 
grew serious. 

*' You have my sympathy," he said, as he respect- 
fully returned her greeting. '' It was a strange and 
sudden death." 

« When you left him, was he well? " asked Beatriz, 
in a trembling voice. 

" He was half beside himself with anger," replied 
Colon, " but I had no thought that evil would befall 
him. My mind was full of other things, I did not 
look behind me." 

" Were you in the cathedral when he lay there ? 
Did you see him? " asked Beatriz, anxiously. 

"I approached the bier and looked at him," he 
answered. '' He was as if asleep. Let us hope that 
the sin of anger was but a stain of the flesh forgiven 
the departed soul." 

" Amen," said Teresa, crossing herself devoutly. 
« Did the wound upon his temple bleed when you 
looked at him?" asked Beatriz, close to his ear, so 
that Teresa should not overhear the words. 

Colon started. This superstition was not new to 
him. With quick intuition he realized what Beatriz 
had thought and feared. 

"I cannot talk to you here," he said. "I will 



28 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

come to your father's house this evening. I know 
your brother, the honorable Rodrigo. He has been 
kind to me. The Pope's former nuncio, the accom- 
plished Antonio Geraldini, presented me to him as 
one worthy of his regard. I lodge near your house. 
I have watched you come and go, and it seemed to 
me that good angels were with you. May they shield 
you from evil fancies ! " 

He was gone ; and Beatriz walked on, blushing and 
chiding herself for her fears, and her too frank expres- 
sion of them. Her mind was relieved. Words of 
denial were unnecessary. Heart spoke to heart. The 
blessing of the Virgin's smile had made their friend- 
ship strange and unearthly, but real and abiding. 

Colon, for his part, was not indifferent to the in- 
terest which he had excited in this beautiful girl. 
Beatriz's modesty was as evident as her beauty. 
There was a radiant spirituality about her that ap- 
pealed to his own deep religious sense, and made the 
understanding between them the result of intuitive 
sympathy. But Colon was not content, as Beatriz 
had been, with the moment's perfection. Life to 
him was full of serious responsibilities. The present 
was laden with the burden of a mighty future ; and 
he saw a supernatural guidance in the most trivial 
occurrences. His meeting with Beatriz, when he was 
still a stranger in Cordova ; the quick impulse of 
prophecy which had welled from his heart to his Hps 
regarding the fulfilment of her prayer ; the death of 
Don Francisco, which had left her free ; his own 
bereaved state, and his need of a woman's sympathy 
to bind the wounds which fate inflicted, and to con- 
sole him for the disappointments he foresaw in a 



HEART TO HEART. 29 

tedious course of supplication at the Court of Spain, — 
all pointed unmistakably, he believed, to a path which 
Heaven had marked out for him to follow. He was 
thrilled with gratitude for the divine interposition 
which echoed the primeval utterance of the Creator : 
"It is not good that man should be alone; I will 
make him an help meet for him." 

All day the voice of Beatriz sounded in his ears, 
and her image was before him. He did not resist 
the pleasing allurements of his fancy, and it seemed 
an inevitable fate which led his steps in the cool of 
the evening to the house of Enriquez. 

An old servant bade him enter, and conducted 
him to a marble-paved patio in the centre of the 
house, where a fountain plashed musically, reflecting 
the sky and the sunset glow. Beatriz sat here with 
her younger brother. Her round white arm was 
about his neck, and his bright face was upturned to 
hers, which, although hardly more mature, wore a 
tender maternal look, as she bent towards him with 
words of counsel and sympathy. Beatriz rose as 
the stranger approached, and her brother stood beside 
her, holding her hand, both youthful figures leaning 
slightly forward, half curious, half startled. 

" Oh ! it is the mad Genoese," whispered Pedro, 
hurriedly. " I met him at our brother's. What 
brings him here? " 

Beatriz blushed, and leaned more heavily on Pe- 
dro's arm. She was conscious of a sudden feeling 
of alarm, as if the sanctuary of her home had been 
boldly invaded. She half read the Italian's purpose 
in the look he bent upon her. She was not dis- 
pleased, and yet she trembled. 



30 COLUMBUS AND BEATRTZ. 

*' Good- evening, Seiior," said Pedro. "Would you 
see my father? " 

Colon smiled into the boy's handsome eyes ; and 
Pedro's prejudice was dissipated, and replaced with 
the loyalty of sudden friendship which children always 
gave the Italian at first sight. 

" Either him or you, or your sister here, whom 
I met in the cathedral," answered Colon. " Your 
brother Rodrigo has given me permission to visit you 
in your home." 

" Be seated, then," said Pedro. " My father is 
busy with his tiresome books, and will not allow us 
to disturb him. When friends come, my sister and 
I see them together. Since Rodrigo is married and 
Diego lives at his house, we alone represent the 
family in the home nest, hard as it often is to be 
shut up away from the gayeties of the rest. But now, 
as soon as Beatriz discards her mourning clothes, all 
will be different. Rodrigo is to give a grand ball and 
banquet. Beatriz and I are both to be there." 

Pedro chattered thus irrelevantly because he feared 
the silence which threatened the group if he did not 
talk. The stranger sat looking with a fixed and 
dreamy gaze at the blushing face of Beatriz, who 
seemed to be deprived of the power of speech. If 
Pedro had not been present, she would have begged 
the stranger's pardon for her unjust suspicion of him. 
She felt convicted of childish folly, and she feared 
the reproaches he must have ready for her who had 
believed him a possible murderer. Since she could 
not broach this subject, the customary polite triviali- 
ties of speech failed her. She wished that he would 
look at Pedro, and not so earnestly at herself. After 



HEART TO HEART 3 1 

Standing a moment in confusion, she turned, saying, 
" I will tell my father that you are here ; " and she 
ran lightly away. 

Pedro looked after her in amazement. "What 
ails my sister?" he exclaimed. " She never tells an 
untruth ; yet it is impossible for any of us to speak 
to my fiither when he is busy with his studies, and 
that she knows as well as I. Moreover, she has run 
into the garden instead of towards the laboratory." 

"No matter," said Colon; "I will talk to you 
instead. Do you love your sister?" 

"Love her!" exclaimed Pedro. "What can you 
be thinking of to ask such a question? Who would 
not love her? She is the best sister in the world." 

"' You say that your father cannot be interrupted, 
yet I would like much to speak with him," replied 
Colon. " Will you not tell him for me that Cristoval 
Colon, a Genoese, desires to make his acquaintance? 
I have no intimate knowledge of alchemy ; yet I am 
versed in astrology, as well as cosmography and as- 
tronomy, and I could tell him much that he would 
be glad to hear." 

Pedro shrugged his shoulders. " I will take ray 
life in my hands and venture into his study at your 
bidding," he said. " If I lose not my head, or am 
not thrust into the furnace for my disobedience, you 
may follow me presendy." 

To the boy's surprise he was given an immediate 
permission to introduce the Italian, of whom Don 
Fernando Enriquez had heard, and whose acquaint- 
ance, as a man of vast and uncommon ideas, the 
alchemist was anxious to make. 



CHAPTER III. 

AN OFFER OF MARRIAGE. 

T^HE dark, low-vaulted room where Don Fer- 
-■- nando pursued his studies was lighted only by 
the glow of a small furnace in the corner, and a 
couple of tapers which burned in iron sconces upon 
the wall above the table piled with books, near which 
the scholar's chair was placed. Don Fernando raised 
a pale, careworn face as the stranger entered, and 
motioned his guest to a seat. 

" My son tells me that you are versed in as- 
trology," he said. " I have had my horoscope con- 
structed by a Moor who dwells in this city ; and 
unless he is a lying knave, it is promised me that 
I am on the eve of the greatest event in my life, 
which can be nothing else than the discovery of that 
transmuting energy which is inherent in the very 
composition of matter, yet which cunningly eludes 
our search. A dozen times the secret has seemed 
to lie just under my hand, but has ever and again 
escaped me. All points with certainty to the final 
solution of this problem. Am I the man for whom 
the great discovery is reser\'ed? Resolve me that 
question by your science, Seiior Colon, and I will 
reward you to the best of an impoverished noble- 
man's ability, w^ith influence rather than with gold." 

" I will endeavor, by the aid of Heaven, to use 
what skill of that sort I possess for your benefit," 



AA^ OFFER OF MARRIAGE. ^^ 

answered Colon ; " but no doubt the Moor is learned, 
and has told you the truth. It may be that you 
have misinterpreted his words. The greatest event 
of your life may come in a shape different from that 
upon which your heart is set." 

'^ What else could greatly concern an old man 
like me?" answered Fernando. "The discovery I 
pursue is life and love to me. For it I wear out my 
days with study and my nights with watching; for 
it I have wasted my fortune and lost my friends. 
My sons frown upon my crazy fancy, as they call it, 
and refuse to aid me. No one gives me sympathy 
but my daughter, and she, alas ! has lost the husband 
whose riches would have made it possible for me to 
perfect the costly experiment I have staked my hopes 
upon." 

" Sefior Enriquez," said Colon, " think it not vain 
presumption which declares through my lips that the 
greatest event of your life occurs at this hour in your 
meeting with myself." 

"With you!" exclaimed Enriquez, at first with 
incredulous scorn ; then with a quick change of feel- 
ing, he added, in a sudden ecstasy of hope, " Have 
you found it? Do you know, and will you impart, 
the secret of the philosopher's stone?" 

Colon shook his head. " I hardly believe that 
Nature will yield that secret to our most ardent 
search," he answered; "but I know a greater one, 
from which will flow results still more surprising. 
After years of research as laborious as your own, but 
guided by divine inspiration, I have reached with 
absolute certainty the conclusion that across the 
western sea there lies a path, easy enough to the 
3 



34 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

adventurous mariner, which leads direct to Manghay 
and Cathay, the kingdoms of the Khan, and the 
island of Zipangu, famous for its wealth of gold and 
precious stones." 

'' I have heard all that," said Enriquez, impatiently. 
" Rodrigo and Geraldini have wearied me with this 
talk of yours about cities of gold and temples of 
ivory. If the king grants your petition for ships and 
men, and you go forth and possess it in his name, 
what is that to me? Will it further my discovery, 
which is of greater worth to me than the realms of 
the Khan?" 

"Yes," answered Colon; "I care little for the 
wealth I shall win, except for the purpose to which 
I shall apply it, — the purchase of the Holy Sepul- 
chre from the hands of the infidels. This lies as 
near my heart as your precious discovery does to 
yours; but I hope to possess more than enough 
to equip an army or to ransom the Sepulchre at the 
highest price the Soldan may put upon it. The sur- 
plus shall overflow to meet every demand of duty and 
friendship, — to you first, if close relationship shall 
warrant it. Senor Don Enriquez, I ask you to bestow 
upon me your daughter Beatriz in marriage." 

Enriquez was astounded beyond measure. His 
mind quickly reviewed the words of the Italian, and 
all that he had heard of him and of his pretensions 
since his coming to Cordova. He was disposed to 
believe in his theory ; and he was impressed, as the 
scholarly Geraldini had been, with the grandeur of 
his views. The proposed connection with himself 
placed the matter in a new light. It was through 
his daughter's marriage alone that Enriquez had 



AN OFFER OF MARRIAGE. 35 

hopes of acquiring the fortune he coveted. Since 
Don Francisco's death, he had looked in vain for 
the suitor who should unite wealth and generosity 
with a sympathy for the views and pursuits of the 
alchemist. Garcia de Silva would inherit a compe- 
tency, which his extravagant tastes would spend on 
every object rather than the purchase of chemicals 
and costly books for his father-in-law. Placing him- 
self first, as he always did in such considerations, 
Enriquez did not consult the probable wishes of his 
daughter, or consider that the younger man would 
be more likely to win her heart. 

"I will not refuse you, Seiior Colon," he said; 
" neither can I give you much encouragement. Our 
family is one of the most ancient in Cordova. My 
sons would look higher for a husband for their sister ; 
but other things than rank are to be considered. 
Wealth is a necessity, a generous spirit, such as you 
have already manifested, being combined with the 
power to give ; for I will not deny that my fortune 
has been spent, worthily but as yet in vain, and 
I need money. Fill my hands with the golden 
treasures you promise, and my daughter shall be 
yours." 

Colon smiled with lofty pity for this impatient 
greed. *' Years as well as floods may roll between 
me and the distant shore which I behold with the 
eye of faith," he said. " The maiden would not wait 
for me. A younger suitor would claim her. You 
would part us, who are destined for each other, 
and to what purpose? Only to oppose yourself 
to the greatest good that fortune has ever offered 
to you, — the connection with the discoverer of 



36 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

more than the philosopher's stone, — one whose 
name, as the instrument of Heaven, is to resound 
through all the centuries to the utmost limit of 
time." 

This sublime self-conceit, unmixed with vanity, im- 
pressed Enriquez, whose mind was disposed, by the 
character of his pursuits, to view all subjects from an 
unusual standpoint. 

" I do not reject you," he said. " We will talk 
further of this matter. Meantime you may visit us 
freely as a friend who is always welcome. And now 
leave me, for the metal in my furnace is at white 
heat, and a moment's delay will be fatal. This is but 
a trifling experiment, but the simplest things some- 
times prove the best. The truth lies before our eyes 
could we but see it. Good-night. You will find my 
daughter in the garden. I give you permission to 
address her." 

After the close, heated room the evening hour and 
the breath of flowers were refreshing. Beatriz was 
alone in the garden, and she looked up shyly as Colon 
approached. Pedro had followed her to discuss their 
odd guest and the strange circumstance of his visit to 
their father, and had then gone to spend a gay even- 
ing at his brother's house. Beatriz would not leave 
her father. She was waiting to give him his evening 
draught, and to console him for the certain failure of 
his experiment, as she had often done before, with 
the hope of future success, and with cheerful talk, and 
a song to the sound of her guitar. 

" Why did you flee from me?" asked Colon, in a 
tone of tender reproach, as he joined her. 

" I do not know," answered Beatriz, her heart beat- 



AN OFFER OF MARRIAGE. 37 

ing quickly. " It seemed to me that you were changed. 
In the cathedral I was not afraid, though I saw you 
for the first time. It must be that I feel my guilt in 
having suspected you of a dreadful crime." 

" Let us not speak of that," interrupted Colon ; 
" that may well be forgotten. Let no suspicion hence- 
forth come between us. I am changed only because 
a breath of happiness has blown over me, reviving 
hopes and feelings which I thought were long since 
dead, as a spring shower revives the flowers in your 
garden. Do you think, Beatriz, that a woman of 
youth and beauty could learn to love me? What 
would she answer me should I ask her to be my 
wife?" 

Beatriz attempted no reply. 

" You are the only woman I could wish to wed," 
continued Colon. *' You are free from frivolity and 
selfishness ; you are gentle and patient, religious, and 
capable of noble emotion. Heaven has led me to 
you as the footsteps of a wanderer are directed in the 
desert to the one spot of verdure and fertility where 
he may rest, before he leaves it for a further weary 
march over burning sands beneath a sky of brass. 
Your tender heart will not refuse this solace to one 
who needs your companionship and love. You will 
not say me nay." 

This was not the impassioned wooing of a youthful 
lover, but it appealed to Beatriz's life-long habit of 
self-sacrificing devotion to interests other than her 
own. Pedro had told her in a few words the story of 
the Italian's Hfe, and she had been thrilled with pity 
and admiration. Where others derided, she was 
ready to believe and uphold. 



38 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

"Tell me about yourself, Senor," said Beatriz, 
making no direct reply. "How can I help you?" 

Colon took a seat beside her in the shadow of a 
pomegranate-tree, where a nightingale was singing. 
The moon cast arabesques of shade through the leaves 
upon the sand at their feet and the whitewashed wall 
of the house before them. The brooding silence of 
the summer night was full of peace. 

" Let me enjoy these halcyon days while they last," 
exclaimed Colon. " It is a moment's calm for a 
shipwrecked mariner, a truce from misfortune which 
Heaven grants. Ah, Beatriz, the Virgin blessed her 
worshipper when she led his steps to thee." 

Then he began the story of his great ambition, 
which was to be fulfilled like a Delphic prophecy 
both more and less completely than he hoped. It 
was not of a new world that he was dreaming, nor 
did he imagine that the purpose which inspired the 
enterprise with the sacredness of a crusade, the con- 
version of the heathen and the final crowning of the 
whole by the rescue of the Holy Sepulchre with the 
treasures of the Indies, should foil of fulfilment and 
remain a forgotten dream. As he unfolded it to her, 
it seemed to Beatriz the grandest project a mortal 
could conceive. She did not discredit the element 
of the supernatural which Colon everywhere recog- 
nized in the leadings of his life. When he again 
referred to their meeting as ordained by the divine 
will, Beatriz's heart was fired with a conviction that 
he spoke the truth. What higher fortune could there 
be than an alliance with this messenger of Heaven ? 
Her eyes shone with tears of sympathy for the man 
who had been despised and misunderstood, derided 



A,V OFFER OF MARRIAGE. 39 

and neglected. She would console him for the 
past, and inspire him with strength for the future. 
When Colon ceased speaking, Beatriz gave him 
her hand. 

'' It is yours," she said, with a smile which was a 
benediction. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE CRYSTAL OF BEN HAMET. 

nPHOSE who walk among the clouds are not always 
"*■ objects of admiration to the dwellers on the 
common level. There are mysteries in the higher 
life, Hke those of Eleusis, which only the initiated can 
understand. Beatriz's love seemed to all others a 
strange infatuation. When Don Fernando after some 
dehberation gave his consent to the Italian's suit, and 
announced his choice of a husband for his daughter, 
a storm of opposition arose in the noble family of the 
Enriquezes de Arana. The bridegroom was a widower 
without rank, youth, or fortune. His future was most 
unpromising; his only means of support being the 
making of charts and maps, which furnished a pre- 
carious income not sufficient to maintain a wife and 
family in the necessities of life. His presumption in 
aspiring to the connection was astounding in its auda- 
city, and amazing in its success. Teresa, the old nurse, 
was disconsolate. She foresaw the cessation of her 
golden bribes from De Silva. Her daughter, the 
wife of a baker in the neighborhood, joined in her 
lamentations. 

"To think, "said Rosa, the baker's wife, "that it 
should come to this ! The wedding-table will be bare 
enough, I warrant you, for Don Rodrigo will not give 
a real to furnish it if his sister marries against his 



THE CRYSTAL OF BEN HAMET. 41 

wishes, and Don Fernando and this beggarly Italian 
between them could not lay out five pesos upon it. If 
Don Francisco had but lived ! Such a cake as I had 
planned ! It would have been the talk of the town ; 
a tower at each corner in sugar work with gilded cu- 
polas, and the arms of the Aranas and Hernandezes, 
one on each side, with devices of hearts and wreaths 
and doves around the margin ; then a great B in the 
centre. I lay awake at night contriving it. It would 
have taken two skilled workmen a week. Now good- 
by to all that, since there is no money to pay for it, 
or for the fancy bread, without which a wedding would 
not be a wedding. I have still an order to furnish for 
Don Rodrigo's banquet, but my heart is not in it as it 
should be. My dough will not rise, either, if I cast 
sour looks upon it." 

" Well, do not be cast down, my daughter," said 
Teresa. '' I have hopes of my own from this same 
banquet. Don Garcia will be there, and we shall see 
how it will fare with this Senor Colon. ' Many a one 
goes for wool and comes back shorn.' " 

The great ball and banquet at Rodrigo de Arana's 
had excited universal interest. His beautiful sister 
would appear in society for the first time since her 
mourning. The Italian, with whom a rumor of mar- 
riage linked her name, would not be excluded, though 
it was common talk that Rodrigo would rather see his 
sister in her coffin than wedded to the Genoese. 

On the long-expected night Rodrigo's house was 
full of light, music, and perfume. Many dignitaries 
of the court were there, noblemen of high rank, and 
womeif celebrated for beauty and wit, besides a few 
distinguished representatives of the priesthood, for 



42 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

Rodrigo was universally respected. In the galaxy of 
beauty Beatriz shone pre-eminent. She was radiantly 
lovely, with a delicate flush upon her face and a new 
light in her expressive eyes. But the admirers who 
crowded about her found little encouragement. Her 
serene indifference depressed the most ardent spirits, 
and they left her to seek smiles more responsive. 

Antonio Geraldini, the accomplished prelate and 
poet, was approached early in the evening by his 
brother Alessandro, who conducted a handsome and 
elegantly attired young man whom he presented to 
the ex-nuncio as Don Garcia de Silva. 

*' My young friend begs me to make known to him 
the poet who won at twenty-two the golden laurel 
crown," said Alessandro. " He is sick with love, and 
hopes that thou mayest minister to his disease." 

" Alessandro is glad to be rid of my melancholy 
presence," said De Silva, when left alone with the 
ex-nuncio. " I have wearied him to death as I shall 
you with my complaints of fortune's cruelty. Oh, 
Geraldini, look at her, and then say if I am not the 
most wretched man in the world to love her and in 



vam 



''What stands in the way?" asked Antonio, to 
whom De Silva's hopeless attachment for Beatriz was 
not unknown. 

" A thousand obstacles, impalpable as air, yet real 
as Hfe," answered De Silva. " I approach her, whis- 
per in her ear, enjoy the light of her eyes, yet feel 
that she is as far away from me as Paradise from Pur- 
gatory. Let that beggarly Italian come near — whom 
may Heaven confound ! — and she listens to him, she 
smiles, her eyes glow, yet not with love. Oh, An- 



THE CRYSTAL OF BEN HA MET. 43 

tonio, there lies my torment. She believes that she 
loves him, yet she knows not what it is to love. Could 
I but teach her that, I could win her for my own. 
Help me to do it." 

" Why come to me for help ? " exclaimed Geraldini. 
" I am the last man to aid you in such a case. More- 
over, the Italian whom you despise is my friend. He 
is a man of the noblest enthusiasm. He has earned 
my belief and respect." 

" Perhaps he is worthy of it," said De Silva, sup- 
pressing a groan ; " though it seems that he must 
deal in sorcery, since without effort he gains all that I 
most covet. Look from him to me. Which, think 
you, is most likely to win a young girl's love? " 

" You, I should say," answered Geraldini ; '' but the 
heart of woman is, no doubt, a mysterious thing." 

" You will not deny my entreaty, though the Italian 
is your friend," continued De Silva. " It is only that 
you write me a poem that will touch her heart, and 
kindle there the spark that will make it soften in pity 
and tenderness. Once light that fire, and I will com- 
plain no more. Let her understand the language I 
speak, of which at present she has no comprehension. 
Let her be less celestial, less remote in an aureole of 
glory which smites her worshippers with blindness." 

" You speak poetry yourself, Don Garcia," said 
Geraldini, with a smile. 

" Life is a poem when one loves, Geraldini," an- 
swered Garcia ; " but I have not the gift to express 
my thought. Put it for me into verse and metre." 

" Shall I write you a polished cancion or a sen-ano 
which you can sing by moonlight under her window? " 
asked Geraldini. 



44 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

" Let it be a simple love-song," said Garcia, " that 
can be copied on a fair sheet of paper, and her nurse 
will place it for me beneath her pillow or on her 
cushion. She would not listen to my song." 

*' Suppose I give you the love-song of Alonzo de 
Carthagena, a worthy archbishop, who was not igno- 
rant in his youth of the tender passion ; " and Geral- 
dini quoted : — 

" Oh, fierce is the flame that seizes my breath, 
My body, my soul, my life, and my death ! 
It burns in its fury, it kindles desire, 
It consumes, but alas I it will never expire." 

" Mere complaining does not move her," said Gar- 
cia. *' Yet copy me those verses if you will, and add 
to them something of your own." 

"The archbishop has more in the same strain," 
said Antonio, " and I will write them down if it will 
please you ; but believe me, you will not find a poet 
who can work for you the transformation which your 
own address and handsome figure cannot effect." 

" That is the sting of it," said Garcia. " What are 
advantages with others count for nothing with her ; 
yet I will make one further effort. Give me your 
prayers." 

He hastened to Beatriz's side, as she entered the 
banqueting-hall leaning on her brother's arm, and he 
contrived, with Rodrigo's permission, that his place 
should be next hers at the table. Colon was seated 
at the farther end of the room, below all the titled 
guests who were present. Garcia's spirits rose as he 
noticed this arrangement. This hour was his own, 
and he must improve its precious moments. He 



THE CRYSTAL OF BEN HA MET. 45 

could have sat in silent contentment, watching the 
color come and go in Beatriz's face, the turn of her 
head, and the movement of her arms ; listening to the 
music of her voice, even if her words were not for him ; 
but the unwelcome presence of the Genoese reminded 
him of the precarious nature of such happiness. He 
nerved himself for a last effort. 

" Beatriz," he whispered. 

The young girl turned her head with a quick blush 
and a questioning look. 

"Thou knowest that I love thee, that when thou 
dost wed another my life ends," said Garcia, in a 
low, hurried voice. "Turn not from me now. I 
have to tell thee of a prophecy concerning thyself 
and the Genoese. Wilt thou listen to it?" 

Beatriz made no reply, but she leaned towards 
him and fixed her eyes upon his face. The perfume 
of the flowers she wore intoxicated Garcia. She was 
so near him that his breath stirred the loose ring- 
lets above her forehead. Garcia trembled with emo- 
tion, but he continued with an effort, — 

" Last night I roamed the streets wild with my 
grief. I stood beneath thy window." 

Beatriz made a quick movement, like a bird that is 
about to take to flight. 

" Nay, hearken to me," said Garcia. " I have told 
thee a hundred times of my love. I will not weary 
thee with the tale again. I wandered aimlessly till I 
came to a crooked, narrow street where in the turret 
of a house a light was burning at that late hour. I 
remembered to have heard that Ben Hamet, the 
Moor, an astrologer of repute, dwelt there. I sprang 
up the winding stair, and entered the turret room, 



46 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

which was full of strange charts and curious images, 
statues and busts and globes, and circles figured with 
the zodiacal signs. The Moor was an old man, with 
a long white beard and piercing eyes, clad in a crim- 
son robe embroidered in strange designs. I begged 
him, if he had the power he was credited with, to 
divine for me the future of my love. He seated 
himself in a great chair before a table on which stood 
a crystal globe, and he beckoned to me to take a 
place beside him. I obeyed, and fixed my eyes, as 
he did, upon the crystal, which was clear and bright. 
After a time a cloud arose by degrees within the 
globe. I watched it eagerly, but it took no form to 
me. Ben Hamet, however, bent forward, and began 
hurriedly to describe the figures that appeared to 
him. 

" * You love a beautiful woman,' he said ; and he 
pictured to me in words the fairest form in all the 
earth, — thine, Beatriz ; 'but she is threatened with an 
evil fate. An Italian with gray hair crosses your path 
and hers. She follows him. I see a road where the 
two walk hand in hand. A little crevice hidden by 
flowers divides them. It widens, but they clasp 
hands across it, and go on with smiling faces. Still 
the chasm widens and deepens. The hands are un- 
clasped, and the Italian and the beautiful woman go 
on while thou dost follow. The chasm becomes a 
gulf, boundless and bottomless. In it are clouds and 
lightnings, and dark shapes that change so rapidly 
that the eye cannot recognize them. I do but catch 
a glimpse of gleaming swords, chains, and a golden 
throne. The sword flashes from the hand of the 
Italian, and it pierces the heart of the beautiful wo- 



THE CRYSTAL OF BEN HA MET. 47 

man. The throne is overturned in the abyss, and a 
whirhvind sweeps over all. The vision is ended.' " 

Garcia looked fixedly at Beatriz as he quoted the 
words of the Moor. She had grown pale. The whis- 
per in her ear had drowned the mirthful voices of the 
banqueters. 

"You do but play upon my fears," she said. 

" I vow, by all the saints, that the words of the 
Moor were as I have repeated them," said Garcia. 
" I beg thee, Beatriz, avoid this marriage, which threat- 
ens naught but evil. Do not sacrifice thy youth and 
beauty to this careworn, gray-haired man. He has 
no room for love among his ambitions. Thou wilt 
learn, perchance, too late what love is, — how it con- 
sumes, how it demands return. Thou wilt ask for 
bread, and he will give thee a stone. Look at my 
eyes, Beatriz, and love will return thy gaze. Does it 
meet thee thus in the cold gray eyes of the Italian? " 

Beatriz involuntarily Hfted her long lashes, and met 
his ardent look ; then she glanced towards Colon, 
who sat with downcast head and dejected air, un- 
noticed among the brilliant guests, who purposely 
ignored his presence. Garcia's words had greatly 
impressed her, but she forgot them in a sudden im- 
pulse of generous pity. The color rose in her cheek ; 
her eyes sparkled with decision. She unfastened the 
wreath of flowers she wore in her hair, and wound it 
about a crystal goblet full of wine that stood untasted 
before her. 

"Bear this from me to Seiior Colon," she said to a 
servant, " and beg him to drink it in my honor." 

The Italian, flushed with sudden pleasure, received 
the message and obeyed her. The toast was drunk 



48 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

with enthusiasm. Rodrigo and his wife Antonia were 
both incensed at this public manifestation of their 
sister's lamentable infatuation. Garcia de Silva found 
a pretext to excuse himself from the banquet. A 
friend who met him in the hall jestingly condoled 
with him in his too evident repulse. 

"Would that the wine she gave him were mixed 
with poison ! " groaned Garcia. 

" Garcia de Silva is beside himself with grief," said 
one young noble to another. " He rushed from the 
house as if the furies pursued him. We shall find his 
body before long in the Guadalquivir." 

The events of the evening remained long in Bea- 
triz's mind, but she tried to forget Garcia's words, 
which had been dictated by jealousy and despair. 
Her wedding was soon to take place, and she was 
happy, though Teresa lamented the lack of prepara- 
tion and display. 

'*No feasting, no dances, no bull-fights," she ex- 
claimed. " Never before was an Enriquez wedded 
like a simple peasant-girl. And your bridegroom has 
no jewels to give you, though that seems to trouble 
him little, for his thoughts are ever among the 
stars." 

" I desire no jewels," said Beatriz. " I count my- 
self rich in possessing the noblest heart on earth." 

Teresa made a grimace, and muttered inaudible 
comments on the folly of people who turned a deaf 
ear to counsel, and shut their eyes to plain facts. She 
made one last effort to turn the tide of events by 
placing upon the table near her mistress's bed the 
letter and the jewel which Garcia had confided to 
her care ; but she was alarmed at the result of her 



THE CRYSTAL OF BEN HAMET. 49 

imprudence. Beatriz did not spy them until her toi- 
let for the night had been completed, her long hair 
braided, and her beads told. She rose from her de- 
votions in an exalted frame of mind ; when the gleam 
of a diamond beside her missal on the table caught 
her notice. She sprang forward, and raised the per- 
fumed letter and the jewelled pin, while she cast upon 
Teresa a look beneath which the old woman quailed 
with conscious guilt. 

" Traitress ! " cried Beatriz, in a tone vibrating with 
indignant emotion. " Thou dost introduce this here 
at the moment when its sight is a profanation. Dost 
thou think I could place my hand in that of my husband, 
and receive his marriage vows, if on the night before 
I had accepted a gift and a love-letter from another ? 
Am I so base in thine eyes? What is thy object in 
thus offending me? " 

" It is only a trifling poem he wrote," whined 
Teresa, wiping her eyes, " some verses in your honor, 
and a wedding-gift which any one can receive without 
reproach. Why should you break my heart by glaring 
upon me like a basilisk, — me, who brought you up 
and have always loved you? " 

^* Verses in my honor as a bride ? " said Beatriz, 
ironically. " Shall I ask my husband to read them at 
the wedding-feast, and declare the name of the writer, 
which thou dost seem to know, though here there is 
no signature? " 

" You know it would make trouble," said Teresa. 
<*Don Garcia might have been the bridegroom if 
things had turned out differently. If you had any 
pity for him, you would be careful how you drive 
him to desperation. I have known blood to flow at 
4 



5© COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

a wedding- feast from no more cause than you have 
given him by your cruelty." 

"Never speak his name again in my presence," 
commanded her mistress, hopeless of impressing her 
own ideas upon the weak moral sense of Teresa. 
" Carry back the jewel and the verses, and tell him 
what I have said to thee. I send no message to 
him." 

Teresa wept and lamented ; but Beatriz was in- 
flexible, and Garcia's poem was returned unread. 



CHAPTER V. 



THE MENDICANT FRIAR. 



'T^HE marriage service took place in the cathedral, 
-^ attended by priests and acolytes, and by a throng 
of the friends and acquaintances of the bride, although 
her father and younger brother alone represented her 
family. It was a grief to Beatriz that her husband 
should be thus slighted by her relatives ; but Colon 
was unconscious of the intended affront, or indif- 
ferent to it. The two Geraldinis were at his side, 
and many young nobles of the court were present, 
who had been drawn to the wedding by curiosity and 
the fame of the bride's beauty. 

Beatriz had never looked more lovely. Her dress 
was of heavy white silk, ornamented at the hem and 
at intervals above with bands of three-pile velvet sewn 
with seed pearls ; and the long sleeves, slashed to the 
elbow, were decorated with rows of large pearls, 
— stones which had been left her by her mother. 
A veil of soft white material was caught at each side 
above the forehead, and fell back over her head, 
partly concealing her abundant hair and the upper 
part of her figure. Her bridegroom was not as gay 
as custom warranted ; but his clothes were rich and 
new, — a gift from the younger Geraldini. 

The purchase of velvet breeches, satin doublet, and 
embroidered coat for a few hours' display seemed to 



52 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

Colon a foolish expense, for which his conscience 
smote him, when, on leaving the cathedral, with his 
bride upon his arm, he met a couple of mendicant 
friars who stopped the wedding-procession with a 
whining petition for aid. One of them was lame, 
and supported himself upon a crutch ; while his in- 
jured leg, left bare from the knee down to display its 
sores, was dragged painfully after the other. He wore 
his hood over his head, and held out his hand for a 
gift of charity. His companion, clad in a similar 
gray Franciscan garb, wore a peaked head-dress, 
and a masking veil which fell over his face and 
breast, leaving only a space for the eyes. This costume 
of the begging orders was sufficiently impressive to 
attract the notice of the most indifferent. The friars 
reaped a golden harvest among the wedding-guests. 
Colon felt in vain for a coin in the empty pockets of 
his new garments. 

" Give the brother my carved ring," he whispered 
to his bride. " I will replace it with a new one." 

Besides her wedding-ring, Beatriz wore a curious 
carved intaglio which Colon had given her as a token 
of their betrothal. It was left him by a sea-captain, 
who had received it in the Levant from a slave who 
had brought it from Greece. Its exquisite workman- 
ship showed it to be of rare value. Beatrice was un- 
willing to part with it. She attempted, instead, to 
tear a rich pearl from her sleeve. 

The masked friar was close at her side, where he 
had placed himself with a pantomime of supplicating 
gestures, while his brother of the crutch was moving 
about among the wedding-guests. 

" The ring ! the ring," he whispered in a hoarse, un- 



THE MENDICANT FRIAR. 53 

natural voice. " Think not to receive the blessing of 
the saints if you refuse a poor wretched brother the 
alms that is destined for him." 

Beatriz glanced at her husband, who urged her by 
a look to obey him. She slipped the ring from her 
finger with evident reluctance, and handed it to the 
friar, who clutched it eagerly, dropped it into his 
wallet, and disappeared within the cathedral. 

Beatriz wondered that so trifling an incident could 
so greatly depress her spirits. Her husband, who 
watched her face, chided her tenderly for it. 

"Dost thou regret the pretty bauble, my wife?" 
he said, using the new name with pride and tender- 
ness. " Thou knowest I am poor except in love ; but 
some day I will bring thee a jewel from the kingdom 
of the Khan, and virgin gold from the islands of the 
sea, and thou shalt have a ring of surpassing beauty, 
far exceeding the old." 

Beatriz smiled, though there was still a dewy mois- 
ture in her eyes. 

" I loved the ring because thou didst give it to 
me," she said. 

" It were not right that our new life should begin 
by denying to the humblest religious the only alms 
within our power to give," said Colon. " Why should 
I be here in triumph at thy side, and that poor beg- 
gar a suppliant for thy pity? Who has set me up, and 
cast him down? I should tremble for the future of our 
love if we are not willing to sacrifice its dearest gifts 
at the voice of duty." 

Beatriz bent her head as humbly as if her father 
confessor were chiding her for a neglect of her spirit- 
ual interests. She felt that prayer and penance must 



54 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

atone for the stubborn resistance her heart still of- 
fered, though her will was submissive. Her husband, 
noticing her dejection, paused when they reached the 
arched gateway of Enriquez's house, and, clasping her 
in his arms, gave her his first wedded kiss. The 
merry procession of musicians, with tinkling guitars, 
gay flutes, and castanets, was ahead of them, and the 
laughing guests were close behind ; but to the two 
noble and earnest souls it was a moment of solemn 
joy, as full of consecration as the cathedral Mass. 
It seemed to Beatriz to grant abundant absolu- 
tion for her fancied fault, and to promise for the 
future a perfect understanding which nothing could 
disturb. 

With her heart thus set at ease, the girl's youthful 
gayety rose and overflowed in voice and smile, add- 
ing a new charm to her wonderful beauty. The 
guests at the table felt an ever-increasing astonish- 
ment that the elderly seafarer from a foreign land 
should carry off the prize which many a young noble 
coveted. They saw nothing in his grave and care- 
worn face to attract the soft homage of Beatriz's 
look, which, the poetical Geraldini whispered to his 
neighbor, might be compared to the kiss of the sun 
upon the weather-beaten statue of Memnon. 

" Such a touch will waken the stone to song," he 
said. 

" The heart of your Italian may prove no singing 
statue, but an ordinary granite boulder," said his 
neighbor, discontentedly. " It is well that Garcia 
de Silva is not here to share the pain I feel at this 
waste of the precious sentiments of her soul, which the 
God of Love himself would alone be worthy to receive 



THE MENDICANT FRIAR. 55 

and return. The Genoese has bewitched her with 
rank sorcery, and the Holy Office should inquire 
into it." 

" Pray Heaven he may make her a good husband ! " 
whispered Teresa, who stood in the background direct- 
ing the servants, to her daughter, who was assisting her. 
" Never did I see her look with love at a man before. 
Don Garcia would risk his soul's salvation for such a 
beam from her eye." 

Colon was not indifferent to the radiance of his 
bride's loveliness, nor to the envy of which he was 
the object. His heart beat with the pride of victory. 

"This moment is the happiest of my life," he said 
in a low voice to Antonio Geraldini ; " only one 
greater triumph can I conceive, — the first touch of 
my foot upon that Western shore ! " 

"Is that still first with you?" asked Geraldini, 
smiling. "Your wife will soon teach you what you 
risk by harboring a rival to her love in your heart, 
where a woman will take no second place. A month 
hence you will deny your words, or explain them 
away with new interpretations, like our casuistical 
doctors of philosophy." 

There was one lack in the richly endowed nature of 
the Genoese, a deficiency in the perception of the 
humorous. He was startled by Antonio's words, as 
if they contained a baleful prophecy. 

" Never," he answered, " shall love eclipse duty." 

Geraldini, whose versatile mind saw all sides of a 
subject at a glance, was seized with a sudden desire 
to laugh ; but Beatriz's eyes were upon him with a 
questioning expression. She wondered what he had 
said to cause the sudden darkening of her husband's 



56 COLUMBUS AND BEATRJZ. 

face ; but Colon's look reassured her as he added, 
" There will never be a conflict between the two." 

" I like my new brother very well," said Pedro to 
his sister, one evening a month later, in a patronizing 
tone, as he sat alone with her in the paiio. " When 
he sails for the Indies, I hope he will make me his 
lieutenant. My brother Diego says he has already 
given him a promise that he shall go with him on his 
first voyage. Diego attempts to outrank me in every- 
thing because he is three years my senior," added 
Pedro, discontentedly. '* I wish thou wouldst speak 
to Cristoval, and beg him to give me a place in his 
command." 

" I cannot be left quite alone, Pedro, when my 
husband sails away from me," said Beatriz, playfully, 
yet with a certain wistfulness in her look, as she laid 
her hand upon her brother's shoulder. " Thou art 
my hfe-long playmate, and must remain with me." 

" Dost thou still desire my presence, my sister?" 
asked Pedro, turning his head and kissing the tips of 
her fingers. ''They say when people love and are 
married, old friends are forgotten. I know well that 
thou art listening now for Cristoval's footstep ; and 
because he comes not, the hour seems long to you 
which used to fly when we sat together telling tales in 
the starlight." 

"■ I am rejoicing at his delay," said Beatriz, " for it 
assures me that Geraldini has kept his word. He 
promised, if all went well, to introduce him to-night to 
the Grand Cardinal Mendoza. He is disposed to 
favor him, and may obtain for him an audience 
with the king. So high are Cristoval's hopes, that he 



THE MENDICANT FRIAR. 57 

thinks a month or two may see the conclusion of the 
matter. The king has but to speak the word, and 
ships and men will be at his command. Once on the 
sea, he is his own master, and knows right well the 
path to take. Success is certain." 

Her voice Altered. " He longs to %o, Pedro," she 
added ; " he longs to leave me." 

She rose and walked through the arched wicket 
that opened into the garden. Pedro followed her, 
startled and sympathetic, for he had seen a tear upon 
her cheek. 

^' If thou hadst not told me, my sister, of thy re- 
joicing at Cristoval's delay," he said with a curious 
smile, '' I should believe it is his absence which de- 
presses thy spirits. He will soon return, and thou wilt 
be gay once more." 

Beatriz seated herself upon a bench under the 
pomegranate-tree. It was the place where Colon 
had first spoken to her of love. She remembered 
her sensations of enthusiastic sympathy for his lofty 
purposes, and her joyful readiness to share his future 
and to assist him in his work. He was still the 
same in his character and ambitions. She alone 
had changed. 

'• Oh, Pedro," she said, "■ beware of love ! It makes 
one narrow-minded; it will have all for itself; it 
is jealous of everything besides. Jealousy is base, 
unworthy of a noble soul ; but how can we love and 
still avoid it?" 

" Love and jealousy go together, like svmshine and 
shadow," said Pedro. -'The shadow is not to be 
blamed. It is no more than Nature. When I have a 
wife I shall hate the man who looks upon her, and 



58 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

kill him if he serenades her window ; yet I shall count 
the feeling no sin." 

" I had no thought of jealousy as thou dost define 
it," said Beatriz. " I meant only that selfish feeling 
which grudges to another the presence of the be- 
loved, which desires not only to be first but to be all, 
— to embrace every thought, every wish. But forget 
what I have said. It is only a passing ill-humor. 
Do not tell my husband that thy sister is a shrew." 

Pedro gave a laugh, and Beatriz echoed it. 

"Thou art the dearest girl in the world," said her 
brother. " If I could find another such as thou for 
my wife, she should have no cause for jealousy, for 
she would possess me body and soul." 

Beatriz turned away, as if to avoid any further dis- 
cussion of the subject. She caught up an ivory ball 
and tossed it into the air, then flung it to Pedro, who 
returned it, — a childish game with which they often 
whiled away a dull hour. It was so nearly dark 
among the trees that they often missed the ball. 
Once it fell into a clump of rose-bushes, and each 
endeavored laughingly to recover it the first, while the 
guarding thorns interposed a barrier to success. Pe- 
dro obtained it, and Beatriz turned, flushed and 
breathless, to find her husband standing beside her. 

" I am glad thou art so merry," said Colon, giving 
and receiving a kiss. " Life has few cares for the 
young. It is all a holiday time. It is well thy 
brother is so dear to thee, since I must be often 
away." 

"What has been determined?" asked Beatriz, 
quickly. " Did the Grand Cardinal encourage thee ? 
Hast thou succeeded?" 



THE MENDICANT FRIAR. 59 

*' In a measure," said Colon, with a happy smile. 
'' I am to follow the court to Salamanca, and there I 
am promised an audience with the king. There is to 
be no more delay." 

Beatriz pressed close to his side. He could have 
felt the anxious beating of her heart as she placed 
her arm about his shoulder. 

"I am to go with thee?" she inquired, half 
assertively. 

Colon shook his head. 

" Thou wilt remain with Pedro, who will console 
thee for my absence with many a good game of 
ball," he said. 

" Cruel ! " muttered Pedro to himself, as he turned 
on his heel and walked away, frowning and clinching 
his fists. 

Beatriz hung her head and dropped her arm. By 
an effort she restrained her tears. She sank upon the 
bench, and Colon once more took the place at her 
side beneath the pomegranate-tree. He drew a long 
breath of satisfaction. 

" At last, at last, I am in sight of the goal," he 
said. He closed his eyes for a moment of inward 
prayer and thanksgiving. In the hurried events of 
the day he had had no time for this. Then he opened 
them with a tender look at Beatriz. He placed his 
arm about her, and drew her towards him. 

"Thou art grieving because we are to part," he 
said ; " it is only for a time." 

" How long? " she asked in a stifled voice. 
"I cannot tell," replied Colon, gravely. "Should 
the king immediately grant my request, and the need- 
ful preparations be made with all possible despatch. 



6o COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

there is still the inevitable uncertainty as to the time 
of my return, even if success attends me." 

"Why can I not share thy wanderings?" asked 
Beatriz. " Why can I not be with thee on thy voyage ? 
Dost thou doubt my courage ? Try me. Put me to 
any test." 

Colon smiled compassionately. 

" Thou art a woman delicately reared and nur- 
tured," he said, " and thy place is not among the 
rough seamen, soldiers, and adventurers who will 
crowd my ships. Discipline must be maintained as 
in the case of war, when no commander allows wife 
and children on board. The perils of the gloomy 
ocean may not affright thee, for thou hast heard my 
reasons for believing that they are mostly imaginary, 
and thou art doubtless willing to brave them for my 
sake. Canst thou not then with equal courage con- 
sent for my sake to remain at home ? " 

"Take me at least to Salamanca," urged Beatriz, 
slipping her hand within his, and looking up with eyes 
of entreaty. " I will not trouble thee, I will be pa- 
tient ; but I shall be near at hand, and I shall know 
how thou dost prosper." 

"That thou shalt know at home, for I will often 
despatch a letter to thee," answered Colon. " AH 
qiierida, dost thou not imagine that it rends my heart 
to quit thy side? I married thee for love of thy 
beauty and thy gentle soul, and life is empty without 
thee. But wouldst thou tempt me to remain in ease 
and dalliance here among the flowers, caring for 
naught beyond thy smiles? Wouldst thou have me 
die here in Cordova with all my work undone, known 
only as the poor chart-maker who wedded the beau- 



THE MENDICANT FRIAR. 



6i 



tiful Beatriz Enriquez, and sacrificed the hopes of a 
lifetime at her bidding? I cannot take thee to Sala- 
manca, for there I shall be a guest in the convent of 
the Dominicans, who would not receive thee, a woman. 
Moreover, the king has sent me money to be dis- 
bursed for the expenses of my journey and of my 
presentation at the court. I should blush to accept 
this gift only to spend it like a doting husband upon 
my wife, and in no other way can I obtain money at 
this time. Had I now the wealth I shall one day 
command, thou shouldst go with the retinue of a 
princess, and be lodged as becomes thy rank ; but 
were that the case, I should not now be suing at the 
Court of Spain, nor should I have met and loved thee, 
for years ago I should have made the venture for my- 
self or for some other monarch who would have 
smiled upon me had I possessed riches to recom- 
mend my plans. Let us not then rail at fortune, 
since all happens by the will of God." 

Beatriz hid her face upon her husband's bosom, 
where he should not see the tears that fell from 
her eyes. 

" So long as thou dost not forget me, I will try to 
be patient," she said. 

Colon bent and kissed her hair. 

'' I cannot forget thee if I would," he answered. 



CHAPTER VI. 



THE PSYCHE RING. 



/^^ OLON was gone, and Beatriz's life was desolate ; 
^"-^ but pride came to her aid, and enabled her to 
repulse with apparent unconcern the sympathy that 
was offered to the young bride thus early deserted. 

" My husband will soon return," she said to all. 
" His stay at court is necessary to his success. We 
cannot wish it otherwise." 

She assumed a gay indifference which was more full 
of pathos than an outward show of grief. Pedro was 
her ardent champion. When in society, he spoke of 
the great future and brilliant prospects of his brother- 
in-law as requiring a sacrifice of personal happiness. 
He prophesied an immediate success for him, and 
sang his praises assiduously. When alone with his 
sister, he refrained from adding to her grief by a word 
of doubt or of reproach; but he reheved his mind 
by pacing at night upon the housetop or beside the 
Guadalquivir, and calling aloud into the darkness 
curses upon the man who had wounded the tender 
heart, which, as Pedro considered, he was unworthy 
to possess, since he counted its claims as nothing 
compared to those of his ambition. 

Teresa, too, was full of complaints which she had 
not the discretion to keep to herself. She bewailed 



THE PSYCHE RING. 63 

the slight which the family of Enriquez suffered from 
a nameless and penniless foreigner. 

" Does he think he can wear a beautiful young 
bride like a glove to be cast off at pleasure?" she 
cried. " He should not treat me so ; and were I 
Don Pedro, I would not swallow the affront, as if he 
were a prince of the blood to be humored at any 
price. My seiiora says the parting is but for a day or 
so, yet I warrant if he had his way the Italian would 
sail straight for the land of the Khan ; for that is what 
he wishes most, and love and marriage with him do 
but fill up an idle time. It is a sin and a shame ! " 

Don Fernando alone accepted the situation with a 
good grace. He recognized the imperious claims of 
an ambition which held the promise of a golden har- 
vest. He was anxious that there should be no delay 
in the fulfilment of the hopes by which the Genoese 
had won his consent to the marriage with his daughter. 
Beatriz's happiness had never been her father's first 
consideration. He saw only a cause for congratula- 
tion in the fact that his son-in-law, by his presence at 
court, had won the notice of the Grand Cardinal, and 
was promised an early audience with the king. The 
alchemist was content to let his furnace stand idle, 
and to devote his time to collect and retail the latest 
news concerning the prospects of Colon, which had 
never seemed so bright. 

Beatriz sat alone one day in an upper turreted 
chamber, busy with her needle, which often paused 
suspended in her fingers, while her gaze was far away 
in dreamy abstraction. Teresa came into the room, 
heralding her approach as usual by a sigh. 

** There is a friar in the patio who asks to see you," 



64 COLUMBUS AXD BEATRIZ. 

she said. " He says he has a token from Sefior Colon, 
— whom may the saints confound ! " she added under 
her breath. 

Beatriz did not stop to question her. She flung 
down her work, and flew rather than ran to the patio. 
The friar sat on a bench by the fountain, leaning on 
his staff", with his cowl pulled forward to shade his 
face. He did not move as she approached. 

"What is your message?" asked Beatriz. "Do 
you bring me news of my husband?" 

The man looked up, and pushed back his hood, 
showing the face of Garcia de Silva. Beatriz 
started. 

" Don Garcia ! " she exclaimed. " Why do you 
come thus in disguise?" 

" To obtain a word with you," he answered. " I 
beseech you hear me patiently." 

" So far as it concerns my husband I will listen to 
you," said Beatriz, with dignity ; " but further conver- 
sation I must deny you, as my time is fufl of household 
cares, which await me." 

Garcia gazed at Beatriz long and steadily. 

" You, too, have suffered," he said ; " you have 
given your heart, and in vain." 

Beatriz colored indignantly, but Garcia went on 
hurriedly, — 

" The prophecy of Ben Hamet's crystal is already 
in part fulfilled. There is a gulf between you and 
the Italian which you long in vain to close. It will 
widen more and more." 

" Do you intend thus to abuse my patience?" ex- 
claimed Beatriz. " The invention of that foolish story 
is as idle as your finding its fulfilment in a chance 



THE PSYCHE RING. 65 

absence of my husband. I have no time to listen to 
you further." 

" Wait but a moment ! " said Garcia. He laid aside 
his staff, and took from his wallet a small object 
wrapped in silken tissue. 

'' I once befriended an old begging friar," he said, 
" who fainted upon my doorstep, and who died that 
same night in my bed. He left me his blessing and 
his cast-off clothes, — his only possession. It oc- 
curred to me when I noticed a mendicant friar limp- 
ing painfully after a bridal procession on its way to 
the cathedral, that by assuming this disguise I might 
join him, and thus win a touch from the hand of 
the bride and a gift from her bounty. The mask 
would prevent recognition. I succeeded beyond my 
hopes." 

Don Garcia drew from beneath his tunic the mask- 
ing head-dress, and for a moment assumed it ; and 
Beatriz saw before her the mendicant upon whom she 
had bestowed her precious ring. 

" Return me my ring," she said quickly. " It was 
a deception I cannot forgive. If you are come to 
restore it to me, you shall have my life-long thanks." 

" That would be grateful to me," said Garcia ; 
" but not so dear as this ring, which is precious to 
me since it has been upon your finger. I cannot give 
it up." 

" It is not yours, — it was falsely won. I demand 
its return ! " exclaimed Beatriz. 

Garcia smiled and held the jewel to the light, which 
played upon the delicate carving, bringing out its 
details. 

" The design represents Psyche deserted by Love," 
S 



66 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

he said. " She holds out detaining arms to the fleet 
god in vain. The jewel would seem more appropriate 
to my lonely heart than to the triumphant joy of a 
young bride." 

Beatriz bit her lip. 

" I love the ring," she said, endeavoring to speak 
with calmness. *' I have mourned its loss as if it 
were a precious talisman. Restore it to me, I 
entreat." 

"Thou shalt have it," said Garcia, suddenly. 

Beatriz held out her hand, smiling, though her eyes 
were dim. 

" If thou wilt ransom it," concluded Garcia. 

Her hand fell, and the angry tears overflowed her 
eyes. 

"Give me some other jewel thou hast worn, — thy 
pin, thy bracelet," urged Garcia ; " I cannot give it 
up without return. It is to me also a sacred talisman. 
Give me thy golden bracelet." 

Beatriz quickly slipped the bracelet from her arm, 
and held it towards him. Garcia smiled, and dropped 
the ring into her outstretched palm. 

" It is not yet a fair exchange," he said. " The 
golden circlet is a meaningless thing, — dear only 
since thou hast worn it ; but the ring contains in its 
design the poetry of sorrow and. unrequited love." 

" Leave me ! " said Beatriz, pointing to the door 
with the gesture of an ofl"ended queen. " Let me 
never see you more." 

Garcia rose with a lingering look at her face. He 
drew his cowl over his head, and took up his staff". 

" I obey," he said. " Farewell." 

When Beatriz was once more in her room, she 



THE PSYCHE RING. 67 

bathed her recovered ring with tears. She studied the 
figures cut so deUcately in the gem, and Garcia's in- 
terpretation seemed to have dulled its beauty. She 
had believed it to represent an angel descending to a 
maiden bent in prayer ; and it had seemed to contain 
a prophecy of her first meeting with Colon in the 
cathedral. Now she saw that the maiden's gesture 
was one of despair, and that the winged visitor was 
taking flight. It was as if a baleful enchantment had 
been cast upon the thing she loved. She had bought 
it dearly, and it was no longer what it had been. She 
had fancied that the restoration of the ring would 
bring her husband once more to her side, for its loss 
had seemed to presage the early clouding of her mar- 
ried life. Now it mocked her with vainly cherished 
hopes. She sighed, and resumed her needle, watch- 
ing the jewel flash and sparkle with the movements of 
her finger. 

Don Enriquez, who had spent the morning at a 
neighbor's, returned home in a very bad humor, with 
news which he had gathered from the neighbor's son, 
who was a bachelor at Salamanca. The king had 
granted Colon an audience. He was at first favor- 
ably impressed by his eloquence in presenting his 
views ; but the cautious Ferdinand was unwilling to 
commit himself to a definite promise. He had re- 
ferred the matter to the prior of Prado, commanding 
him to assemble a grand council of ecclesiastics and 
the professors of the university of Salamanca to pro- 
nounce judgment upon the feasibiHty of the plan, 
before he diverted any funds from the prosecution of 
the Moorish war to the pursuit of a possible chimera. 



68 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

" This means endless delay and probable failure," 
said Don Enriquez. "Would I had known two 
months ago how the king would regard the matter ! 
Thou wouldst not now be wedded to a penniless ad- 
venturer, who lives by deluding others. Thou art a 
deserted bride, and I a dupe of this plausible Italian, 
who has deceived us both." 

" You wrong my husband," said Beatriz. "He is 
true and noble. Some day he will succeed." 

Her tone of quiet conviction recalled to Enriquez 
the fact that the decision of the council was still in 
abeyance, and might be favorable. He sighed, shook 
his head doubtfully, and returned to his interrupted 
studies. 



CHAPTER VII. 

FRANCISCO XIMENES. 



THE great hall of the convent of St. Stephen, in 
the city of Salamanca, was the scene of an au- 
gust assembly. Cardinals and bishops, priests and 
prebendaries, the Dominican friars to whom the con- 
vent belonged, their rivals the Franciscans, and the 
representatives of many other religious orders, be- 
sides scholarly men of all ranks, crowded the benches 
with an array of learning and dogmatism, both at that 
time supreme in Salamanca. The revival of letters 
was balanced in Spain by the growing power of the 
Inquisition, which had begun its insidious sapping of 
the nation's strength at the time of its greatest out- 
ward prosperity. The spirit of freedom, of self- 
government, of resistance to kingcraft and priestcraft 
— except as they represented the people's will — had 
lingered long in Castile and Aragon ; but it was fast 
giving way to debasing superstition and the servility 
that welcomes despotism. The glory of old Spain 
was to depart with the death of chivalry, which was 
fighting its last fight in the slowly advancing war 
against the Moors. 

The Council at Salamanca had assembled to try a 
theory, not a man ; but Colon felt that his very life 
was at stake, when he faced the imposing assemblage 



70 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

single-handed and unfriended to do battle for his 
cause. The hopes of a hfetime were to be fulfilled 
or disappointed. The sacrifices he had made were 
to be justified or rendered abortive. He was to be 
vindicated as an inspired thinker, or branded as a 
deceiver or a fool. He felt like a gladiator in the 
arena, as he rose to confront the sea of curious and 
sceptical faces, to reply to the questions put to him, 
and to answer trivial objections. He soon found that 
his audience were opposed to him almost to a man. 
Here and there a friendly voice was raised from time 
to time, but it was silenced by the long-winded elo- 
quence of some monastic dignitary who was armed 
with a ponderous artillery of quotations from Scrip- 
ture and from the Fathers, proving the incredible 
absurdity of the existence of antipodes, and declar- 
ing that it savored of heresy to talk of undiscovered 
countries populated with races who could not have 
derived their descent from Adam, the father of 
mankind. 

The slightest breath of an accusation of heresy 
might light the fagots of an auto da fe; but al- 
though Colon knew that the peril was a real one, 
he was persuaded that Heaven would preserve its 
messenger, and the very necessity of his position 
gave him courage. He met his opponents with elo- 
quence and learning greater than their own. Through 
the efforts of Antonio Geraldini the charge of heresy 
was abandoned almost as soon as made. Diego de 
Deza, a powerful Dominican, cast the weight of his 
influence in favor of the Genoese. 

The day was over. The conclave ended without 
arriving at a decision. The meetings would be re- 



FRANCISCO XIMENES. 7 1 

sumed from time to time. Fernando de Talavera, 
the prior of Prado, was in no haste to bring the mat- 
ter to a conclusion. The importunities of Colon had 
wearied him. His own decision was immovably fixed 
against him ; but he did not dare openly to oppose 
the will of the king and queen when they were in- 
clined to favor the persistent Italian. He had found, 
however, that a policy of delay was as efficacious for 
his purposes as an absolute denial ; and he succeeded 
in this case in contriving a delay of five years in the 
answer of the Council. But this Colon could not 
foresee. He waited and hoped from day to day, 
making acquaintances and friends among learned and 
distinguished men, thinking that he was thus strength- 
ening his cause, unconscious of the fixed opposition 
which negatived every apparent gain. 

He had occasion one evening to address the prior 
of Prado with a petition for a special hearing, and, as 
usual, he was required to wait an indefinite time in 
his anteroom before the distinguished ecclesiastic 
could find leisure to receive him. Some idle young 
noblemen, friends of De Silva, who were united in a 
common feeling of dislike to the Genoese, followed 
him with the purpose of witnessing the sport which 
one of their number declared he would contrive for 
their amusement. 

" I have something to tell this truant bridegroom 
which will goad him as thoroughly to madness as the 
red handkerchief does the bull in the circus," said 
Don Manuel, the leader of the group, as they entered 
the silken-hung apartments of the wealthy prelate. 

A Franciscan friar sat in a window-seat reading a 
printed volume, which he was eagerly comparing with 



72 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

a manuscript spread before him. Colon had met the 
friar in the Council, and knew him to be Francisco 
Ximenes de Cisneros, a man of wonderful ability and 
erudition, who had committed himself to no deci- 
sion in the matter pending before the college of St. 
Stephen. He was glad of an opportunity to address 
himself to Ximenes, and was about to venture to in- 
terrupt his studies, when Don Manuel and his friends 
approached him. 

"How goes the world with you, Senor Colon?" 
asked Don Manuel, slapping him familiarly on the 
shoulder, " and how fares your lovely bride left alone 
in Cordova? Why do you not bring her to court, 
where she would eclipse all others by her beauty? 
Surely you are jealous, or you would not leave her in 
solitude when the world is pining to behold her." 

*' I take it to be a very certain sign that the Seiior 
is not jealous," interposed a companion. " He leaves 
the lady behind him absolutely at liberty. Is she a 
Penelope of constancy, warranted to keep faith for 
twenty years? " 

Colon turned, and angrily confronted his question- 
ers. Ximenes had laid aside his book, and was 
watching the group. 

" The lady who is my wife is above the mention of 
idle tongues," said Colon, with dignity. 

" Nevertheless she receives old lovers in your ab- 
sence," said Don Manuel. " Garcia de Silva, who is 
my friend, has long been madly in love with her, and 
half lost his wits when her father denied her to him. 
He has lately arrived at Salamanca, and he showed 
me a bracelet he had from her as a gift. He will not 
deny it if you question him. It is made of three 



FRANCISCO XIMENES. 73 

ropes of Etruscan gold, bound together with a buckle 
studded with seed pearls, — a pretty bauble, which he 
prizes beyond a fortune." 

Colon grew white. 

" Do not detain me with your base fabrications," 
he said. 

" By our Lady, I speak the truth ! " said Don 
Manuel, " and you have the day before you if you 
are to await the tardy coming of the prior of Prado ; 
but if you like not our company, we will leave you ; " 
and the young men withdrew, with significant laughter 
and the exchange of vapid jests. 

Colon had forgotten the presence of the Franciscan. 
He flung himself into a chair beside a table, laid his 
head upon his folded arms, and groaned aloud. He 
started, and looked up fiercely, when Ximenes ap- 
proached and laid a hand upon his shoulder. 

" I heard what the young men said," he began. 

" Do not think for a moment that I credit it," 
exclaimed Colon. "The foolish youth expected to 
embroil me in a dispute with this young Garcia. I 
would not accord so much importance to his false 
boast, or so discredit my trust in my wife." 

" Yet the taunt cut you to the quick," said Ximenes, 
in a tone of lofty pity. " It grieves me to see a man 
like you, Sefior Colon, brought to such a pass. As I 
have met you in the Council, I have noticed in you 
an intensity of religious enthusiasm, a fearlessness of 
soul, and a gift of inspired utterance which recalled 
to my mind the character of the blessed Saint Francis 
de Assisi, founder of the Seraphic Order of which I 
am a humble member. I thought that you were ripe 
to embrace the strictest rules of our order, and to 



74 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

leave behind you the name of a saint in the Church. 
When you spoke of converting the heathen and res- 
cuing the Sepulchre, it did not occur to me that you 
would go in any other garb save that of a consecrated 
servant of the Cross. Great is the contrast between 
my visionary hopes and the reality. I see you the 
slave of love, vulnerable to a chance shaft of malice 
as to a mortal wound, uttering groans which could 
only be extorted from a saint by the consciousness of 
peril to his soul in the taint of mortal sin still unsub- 
dued. My pity for you is great. A woman's smile 
debars you from the heights of seraphic bhss." 

Colon looked up startled into the kindling eyes and 
commanding countenance of the man who was to be 
twice Regent of Spain, and a cardinal as distinguished 
for his political influence as Richelieu in France. He 
was already renowned for his austerities, his charity to 
the poor, and his love of letters and science, of which 
he was a generous patron. His words touched the 
conscience of Colon with a new and sudden pain, as 
if a surgeon with his probe had searched out a hidden 
wound. 

" The religious Hfe is the noblest, and, no doubt, as 
you say, the happiest ; but all are not called to it," 
he answered. "I am a wanderer, unable to make 
myself a permanent home. I snatch at happiness as 
a beggar at a crust, taking it when and where I can." 

*' The rules of our order are elastic," said Ximenes. 
" As a Franciscan, you could still lead your ships to 
the Indies, and your armies to the land of the Soldan." 

" But my wife — " began Colon. 

" ' I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot 
come,' " quoted Ximenes, with the incisive utterance 



FRANCISCO XIMENES. 75 

which won attention to his pulpit oratory from the 
most indifferent. There was silence for a moment. 
Then the friar continued : " When the blessed Saint 
Francis preached, so convincing were his words that 
multitudes of men and women, by common consent, 
dissolved the marriage tie and embraced the religious 
life." 

" It is not for me," said Colon ; " I have chosen my 
path for weal or woe. If I might join the Third Order 
of Saint Francis — " 

" You could still remain a married man," concluded 
Ximenes, with a darkening brow ; " but as for that, 
inquire not of me. It is accorded to the weakness of 
feeble souls who walk stumbling and halting in the 
narrow road. I saw in you a jewel of special lustre 
which the Lord desired to add to the number of his 
saints in his crown. If you refuse this calling, my in- 
terest in you is at an end, — * Ephraim is joined to his 
idols ; let him alone.' " 

So saying, the Franciscan took up his book and 
papers, and left the room. 

It was not until the close of the day brought soli- 
tude that Colon was able to reflect without interrup- 
tion upon the words of Ximenes, which had greatly 
impressed him. The unreasonable but cruel pain 
which Don Manuel's words had given him disposed 
his mind to turn with longing to the promises of im- 
movable serenity which the religious life offered. The 
habit of obedience to duty was fixed with him ; but his 
interpretation of duty had hitherto been elastic, re- 
quiring only a conscience at peace with heaven and 
the world, prayer which was spontaneous rather than 
ceremonial, and the pursuit of his dear ambition, whose 



76 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ, 

ultimate object was the glory of God. The minor de- 
tails of life must arrange themselves as they would 
with a busy man of action, and he had acquired a 
breadth of view and a wide-reaching sympathy with 
life in its various phases which could never have been 
gained in the circumscribed routine of a convent. 
Now a new element had been introduced into his 
consciousness. He had met a mind which dominated 
his own. Ximenes, with the instinct of genius, had 
chosen the moment when the way was prepared for 
the entering wedge of his influence. 

Colon felt that he had reached a turning-point in 
life. He had long since bade farewell to youth, but 
not until now did he relinquish youth's prerogative of 
careless joy and light-hearted enthusiasm. His heart 
had grown old in a moment. Evil could not enter 
into his thought of Beatriz, but jealousy had taken 
possession of his mind. Never before had he been 
vulnerable to the attacks of this cruel passion, which 
was opposed to logical reflection, and appealed to the 
baser instincts of the soul. He felt humiliated in his 
own eyes, yet he could not escape the oft-repeated 
suggestion : " Thou art old, and she is young and 
beautiful. What lasting hold canst thou have upon 
her love? " 

He did not attempt to sleep, but he paced the flat 
roof of the convent tower, to which he had easy access 
from his room. The city slumbered beneath him, 
and the great pile of the church and college of St. 
Stephen rose in black masses of shadow in the uncer- 
tain starlight. The stars were in their accustomed 
places, but they had an unfamiliar look, like old friends 
estranged. On former calm, still nights he had al- 



FRANCISCO XIMENES. 77 

most fancied that he could hear an echo of the music 
of the circHng spheres. One such he remembered 
when he had stood on the housetop in Cordova with 
Beatriz's httle hand in his. He gave a sigh which was 
almost a groan. Endeavoring to divert his thoughts, he 
recalled the fact that he had in his pocket a letter from 
his father-in-law, which he had received by a messen- 
ger as he came from the prior of Prado's, and which 
he had neglected to open. He made his way down 
the stairs and into his small, bare room, where he lit a 
taper, broke the seal, and read the letter with a wan- 
dering mind. The fears and reproaches of Enriquez 
had been repeated in frequent letters since the sojourn 
of his son-in-law in Salamanca. The sheet dropped 
from Colon's hand, but he immediately caught it up 
again. On a folded margin Beatriz had written these 
words, which Colon read with eager haste : — 

" Return to me, my beloved husband, if only for a day. 
I have a secret to whisper in thine ear which is for thee 
alone, and which thou wilt most gladly hear." 

Colon fell upon his knees with the letter in his 
hand. He was full of self-reproach and grateful hu- 
mility. Life held the hope of a new, undreamed-of 
happiness. The influence of Ximenes was for a time 
in abeyance ; Don Manuel's words were forgotten. 
Once more he felt in fancy the gentle pressure of 
Beatriz's hand and the tender radiance of her smile. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



LIGHT AND SHADOW. 



OUNSHINE filled the house of Enriquez, though a 
^ wintry wind blew the withered rose leaves through 
the deserted garden, and the Council of Salamanca 
had uttered no decision. Colon had obeyed his wife's 
summons by an immediate return, and he lingered 
from day to day. His tormenting, jealous doubts 
were at an end. They had passed like an evil dream. 
The beauty and nobility of his wife's character were 
newly revealed to him. Each day deepened the con- 
fidence existing between them. Colon confessed the 
injustice of his suspicions, and Beatriz explained the 
cause she had unconsciously given for them. Each 
accepted reproach, and excused the other. 

Teresa rejoiced in her mistress's happiness, but at 
the same time she felt chagrin that her boasted skill 
in reading the heart should be discredited, and that 
the Itahan should possess the virtue of constancy 
which she had denied to his character. 

" It is all the cooing of turtle-doves at our house 
now," she said to her daughter Rosa. " Even Don 
Fernando has forgotten that he distrusted Senor 
Colon, and he is high in his favor again. But mark 
my words, Rosa. The Italian is like a hawk that 
stoops to the lure when it is well baited. Cordova 



LIGHT AND SHADOW. 79 

pleases him now ; but let a prospect of advantage call 
him to court again, and he will fly off down the wind 
without a look behind." 

This oracular simile seemed to Teresa to have been 
inspired by prophetic insight, when a month or two 
later the fortunes of war required the presence of the 
Spanish monarchs and their migratory court at the 
siege of Malaga, then being pressed with vigor ; and 
the prior of Prado, in pursuance of his dilatory policy 
which dictated at times a show of energy, sent a spe- 
cial summons to Colon, desiring his presence and 
promising attention to his claims. 

The second parting was harder than the first. 

*' How can I let thee go ? " said Beatriz. " My 
heart rebels. Fortune is too unkind." 

" But we have grown so close of late that absence 
cannot divide us," said Colon. " Thy heart and 
mine arc henceforth one. Neither can distrust the 
other, neither can forget, or in solitude say, ' I am 
alone ; ' for the power of the soul can annihilate 
space. Thou here and I at Malaga are still united 
and indivisible." 

The thought of these words was a continual con- 
solation to Beatriz, and Colon carried the memory of 
the peaceful home life like a blessed talisman into the 
cruel tumult of the war. De Talavera did not find 
the promised leisure for the consideration of the 
Italian's affairs, and Colon was forced to remain a 
lonely and undistinguished spectator of the varied 
fortunes of the siege of Malaga. Magnificence and 
ferocity were strangely blended in the warfare of the 
times. The silken pavilions of the queen and her 
ladies overlooked the blood-stained, half-demolished 



8o COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

battlements of the unfortunate city; and gay strains 
of martial music greeted the ears of lovely dames 
and noble knights, while the mangled remains of a 
fanatical Moor were being launched as a missile from 
the catapult, to increase the dismay of Malaga's 
starving defenders. 

The surrender of the city ended the campaign, and 
released Colon from his enforced attendance, which, 
as time passed, had become more and more intolera- 
ble. Every thought and wish called him to Cordova, 
and he hastened homeward full of mingled anxiety 
and hope. 

He entered Cordova on a September day, but it 
was not to saunter as a stranger through its streets. 
His heart had a home to which it flew like a dove to 
its nest. The trees still threw thick shadows in the 
Court of Pomegranates. The whitewashed walls of 
the little house reflected the sunshine dazzlingly. 
The courtyard was so still that his footfall echoed 
loudly, and his pulses bounded with alarm. A dread 
too terrible for utterance seized him, and he almost 
swooned with the relief of sudden joy when Teresa, 
craning her neck over the balustrade, caught sight of 
him and called out cheerfully, then rushed into the 
house and came proudly forth to meet him, bearing in 
her arms a fine boy baby, with eyes already like his 
mother's. 

" Is she well? Is she well? " cried Colon. 

" Yes, yes," answered Teresa. " Now that you are 
come, all is well." 

The old house in the quiet courtyard where the 
alchemist for so many years had prosecuted his studies 



LIGHT AND SHADOW. 8 1 

undisturbed, was transformed into a busy little world, 
where the young Fernando reigned an absolute mon- 
arch, with lusty lungs and vigorous tiny fists to enforce 
his supremacy over his willing subjects. From Don 
Enriquez to Teresa, all were his abject slaves. The 
alchemist made rattles out of his retorts, and forged 
his glittering metal into shining toys. Pedro was 
jealous that Colon should usurp his place as the baby's 
most favored attendant. The tiny Fernando was 
already accustomed to the strong arms of his young 
uncle, who would carry him about in the patio, and 
show him the glancing waters of the fountain. The 
baby's smile was a sufficient reward for long and 
patient service. 

Beatriz was radiant in the proud joy of a young 
mother. Her husband's longed-for return filled her 
cup of happiness to the brim. When he sat opposite 
his beautiful wife with his baby on his knee. Colon 
felt that he was secure from evil fortune. If his am- 
bition was slow in its fulfilment, life was complete 
enough to make patience an easy virtue. He pitied 
Ximenes, who could see in the pure joys of family love 
only a snare to the soul. 

One morning Pedro entered the house with a pale, 
anxious face. The family were at breakfast. Beatriz 
had kept a seat for him, and had placed a bunch of 
flowers on his plate. 

'< What ails thee, my brother? " she asked, as Pedro 
bent to kiss the baby who sat enthroned in her lap. 

Pedro looked about upon the circle of happy faces. 

" The plague is in Cordova," he said. 

All exclaimed with horrified incredulity. 
6 



82 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

*' It is true," he continued. " Six have already died, 
and twice that number are stricken. I saw a great 
train of pack- mules leaving the eastern gate, and the 
driver told me they carried the queen's wardrobe and 
that of her household, for the court was about to re- 
move from the city for fear of the pestilence. Noth- 
ing else is talked about upon the streets." 

Beatriz pressed her child to her breast in sudden 
fear for it. The breakfast remained unfinished. The 
servants brought news which confirmed Pedro's re- 
port, and Rodrigo and Antonia came in, with serious 
faces, to discuss the threatened evil. 

" The best we can do," said Rodrigo, addressing 
the family, " is to leave the city until the plague is 
over. Those who linger till they are stricken attempt 
too late to escape. My hacienda offers a secure re- 
treat, to which I invite you all. We can taste the 
pleasures of a sojourn in the country, and the fresh 
breezes will preserve us from sickness." 

This invitation was gratefully accepted by all. Pe- 
dro went to hire pack-mules, which were already 
greatly in demand, and to secure means of transpor- 
tation for the family. Beatriz was busily engaged in 
making the necessary preparations, when her husband, 
who had accompanied Pedro, returned, bringing the 
tidings of several new deaths. 

" The city is in a tumult," he said. " Every face 
expresses selfish fear. All desire to escape. Who 
will remain to nurse the sick and dying?" 

Beatriz looked at her sleeping child with fond 
anxiety. 

"Those who have no close home-ties," she said. 
" The good priests and nuns will not desert them." 



LIGHT AND SHADOW. 83 

" Was Ximenes right, then, when he said that the 
ties of the family endanger the soul? " asked Colon, 
quickly. " Are we so selfish in our love ? " 

" Wouldst thou have me remain?" asked Beatriz, 
doubtful of his meaning. 

" No, a thousand times no," exclaimed her husband. 
"Thou and the child must be beyond the reach of dan- 
ger ; but I, whose conscience could find no ease in 
safety, must obey the voice that bids me join the good 
brothers in their fight with death." 

"Thou wilt remain exposed to the worst danger? " 
cried Beatriz. 

" Yes," answered Colon. " I shall take the vows of 
the Third Order of Saint Francis. I have long medi- 
tated the step. In that garb I can the better serve my 
suffering fellow- men. I have no fears for myself." 

" I will not leave thee," said Beatriz. " I will stay 
also." 

"But the child," exclaimed Colon, growing pale. 
" If he should die — " 

" We are in the hands of the Lord," said Beatriz, 
solemnly. 

Colon took her hand, and sat silently with bowed 
head, fighting the tumult of agonizing thoughts which 
bade him relinquish his purpose rather than expose 
wife and child to the dreaded infection. Francisco 
Ximenes seemed to rise before him, condemning 
him for his weakness. " He who hateth not wife 
and child is not worthy of me," — these words 
sounded in his ears. 

" Wilt thou not please me, my dear one, by consent- 
ing to leave me here alone, and go with thy child and 
family to the cool and pleasant country?" he said in 



84 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

a tone of entreaty. "■ It is only for thee that I am 
weak with fear." 

" No," said Beatriz, stoutly. " My place is at thy 
side. Where thou art, there will I remain." 

"So be it," said Colon, with a sigh. 

Beatriz's family heard of her rash determination 
with horror. They looked upon Colon as the probable 
murderer of his wife and child, since he did not for- 
bid it. Three days later they were left alone. Even 
Teresa deserted her mistress. No servant was left 
in the empty house, which echoed fearfully to the 
young mother's footfall as she went about her daily 
work in her husband's absence. The child was strong 
and healthy, and he took no harm ; but every lonely 
hour was full of dread to Beatriz. Day after day the 
sun rose in a cloudless sky, sinking like a fiery ball in 
dense vapors at night. The hot October air was like 
the blast from a furnace. 

The hospitals were filled to overflowing with the 
sick, and the churches opened their doors for im- 
provised beds upon their floors, while faithful monks 
and nuns showed tireless energy in caring for those 
who needed help, though the ranks of the nurses 
were thinned day by day by the sudden and dreaded 
visitation. Colon, in his gray Franciscan garb, was 
among the most devoted, going about among the 
sick and dying, hardly taking time to eat or sleep. 
Beatriz concealed her fears for his safety, as he did 
his anxiety for her and for the child. 

One evening, when Colon returned late at night to 
his home, he stumbled over the prostrate form of a 
man who lay within the arched gateway of Enriquez's 
house, as if he had fallen unconscious in attempting 



LIGHT AND SHADOW. 85 

to ascend the steps. A glance at his face showed 
that he was stricken with the plague. Without hesita- 
tion, Colon raised him in his arms and carried him 
into the house. Beatriz, who met him wonderingly, 
obeyed his command to prepare a bed, and together 
they laid the sufferer upon it. 

The light of a lamp fell upon the sick man's face. 
The eyes of husband and wife met. 

"It is Garcia de Silva," said Beatriz, blushing quickly. 

" The man I counted my enemy is laid at my door 
demanding my care," said Colon. " He shall have 
it as if he were my brother ; but when well again he 
shall answer to me for his conduct in the matter of 
the bracelet." 

Colon's devoted care, assisted by that of his wife, 
brought the sick man from death's door. As Garcia 
slowly recovered, he awoke to a sense of unwilling 
obligation to the man he hated. The tedium of con- 
valescence was relieved by the charm of Beatriz's 
presence ; but he dared not disturb her calm indif- 
ference by a word of his former love. He chafed at 
the invisible fetters that bound him, and at the silent 
superiority of magnanimous forgiveness which Colon 
displayed. 

The day that Garcia was able to leave his bed, and 
to sit propped up with pillows in a chair, his host 
entered the room with a serious face, and said, — 

" I have waited for your recovery, Don Garcia, be- 
fore demanding the satisfaction your conscience must 
be eager to offer for the serious affront you gave to the 
fair reputation of my wife by boasting with lying in- 
tent of the gift of a bracelet from her. Explain your 
conduct if you can." 



86 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

Garcia flushed quickly. 

" There is only one way to adjust an affair of 
honor," he said, with a glance at his sword, which 
hung upon the wall. " I recognize no right in you 
to demand explanation of me, even were I con- 
scious of a fault. In this case I am ignorant of your 
meaning." 

" You speak falsely, Don Garcia," said Colon, 
calmly. " You know right well the cause you have 
given me for complaint." 

Garcia started angrily. 

" When I am stronger, I will meet your challenge," 
he said, " and you shall answer to me for your in- 
jurious words." 

Colon glanced at his Franciscan robe. 

" My vows as a Tertiary bind me to peace and 
charity," he said, "and forbid me to avenge myself 
in private quarrel." 

" Thus you shelter yourself behind a cowardly 
pretext to insult me with impunity," sneered 
Garcia. 

" I would appeal to your sense of honor as a 
man," said Colon. " You must promise me that you 
will undo your lying words, restore the bracelet, and 
ask pardon of my wife." 

" If I refuse — " began Garcia. 

*' I have no power to compel you," said Colon; 
"but vengeance will come in Heaven's time." 

Garcia laughed nervously. 

" Never did I receive so strange a challenge," he 
said. " I must accept it, and await the thunderbolts 
of Jupiter, if you have power to call them on my 
head." 



LIGHT AND SHADOW. 87 

Colon turned his back upon him, and left him with- 
out a word. 

When Beatriz brought him his midday meal, Garcia 
looked with compunction at her pale and careworn 
face. 

" You have wearied yourself in my service, and 
I ill requite your care," he said. " Would I had 
died in the hour when I opened my eyes from my 
swoon, and saw your face above me ! I thought 
then that I was in Paradise." 

" Your future should still be full of hope and the 
promise of great deeds, Don Garcia," said Beatriz. 
" It is my husband who has given you a new life, 
for without his care you would have died where you 
fell. I would bid you live it nobly, for his sake." 

*' Not for his sake, Beatriz, but for yours," said 
Garcia, moved by her words and by the continued 
generosity of his rival, who had refrained from giving 
his wife an account of their late conversation. " You 
shall be, though lost to me, my inspiration and my 
guiding star." 



CHAPTER IX. 

AN AFTERMATH. 

"PIGHTEEN months passed, with varying hopes 
"■^^ and fears ; but they were happy months to the 
household of Colon, since they made little record in 
history. The stream that glides gently through the 
meadows attracts but a passing glance ; but when it 
reaches the precipice, and falls broken and distorted 
in wreaths of mist, curious gazers turn from their path 
to behold it. 

The morning sun shone brightly into the council- 
chamber of King Ferdinand in the palace of the 
Alcazar in Seville. This beautiful Moorish structure, 
second only to the Alhambra at Granada, was a 
favorite residence with the court; and the ladies 
who wandered through its famous galleries and gar- 
dens mourned that the blare of warlike trumpets was 
soon to call husband and lover into the dangers and 
difficulties of another Moorish campaign, for it was 
for this that the ambitious sovereigns were preparing 
in the interval of peace. 

Ferdinand sat before a table on which were spread 
rude maps of the country between Jaen and Baza. 
The Marquis of Cadiz, the renowned Rodrigo Ponce 
de Leon, leaned over his shoulder, preserving a 
sufficient distance for respect, but forgetting some- 
thing of the formality of the subject in the eager 



AN AFTERMATH. 89 

interest of the warrior. Other noble cavaliers sur- 
rounded the table, among whom was the intrepid 
Hernando del Pulgar, hero of many a daring exploit, 
and an object of intense admiration to the circle of 
young men who stood behind their elders, burning 
with chivalrous enthusiasm, and longing for an oppor- 
tunity to show their valor under the banner of their 
sovereign. 

The council of war was interrupted by the entrance 
of the Treasurer of Aragon, who had been summoned 
to an audience. Ferdinand raised his head, and 
recognized him with a slightly impatient sigh. 

" Here comes our worthy Luis de Santangel," 
he said, " full of business, with his pockets stuffed 
with deeds and loans ; but he is ever ready to remind 
us how inadequate our resources are to our needs. 
When I converse with thee, De Leon, I feel myself 
already master of Baza ; but Santangel will have us 
balance our hopes against solid ducats of gold, or 
count them ill supported." 

" Your Highness is pleased to jest," answered Sant- 
angel, with a low bow, as he approached the circle. 
" My ambition for your renown and success cannot 
be outstripped by that of any of these gentlemen. 
It is sometimes my unhappy duty to inform you 
of empty coffers ; but courage rises with necessity 
in finance as in war, and some happy stroke of for- 
tune is sure to favor your treasury as it advances 
your banners." 

" Well replied," answered Ferdinand. "What hast 
thou there? " 

" This is a mortgage deed from a converted Jew," 
answered Santangel, "who for a tract of land near 



90 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

Malaga advances a rich loan ; but this paper to 
which 1 especially beseech your Highness's attention 
for the moment is a letter and petition from the 
accomplished Genoese, Cristoval Colon — " 

Ferdinand frowned, and struck the table with his 
fist. " Does he desire that we postpone the prepa- 
rations for the campaign to Hsten to his letters?" 
he exclaimed. " We know that thou dost favor him, 
Santangel, with sympathy and credulity. Have the 
kindness, then, to satisfy him, as thou often dost our 
creditors when they grow troublesome, with prom- 
ises. Promise anything, everything; but silence him 
if thou canst." 

" If your Highness will grant me a moment's in- 
dulgence," urged Santangel, " I will relate but a por- 
tion of his letter. He has received an invitation 
from King John of Portugal, holding out very certain 
hopes of immediate assistance. The king invites 
his return to his court, and assures him of personal 
protection and favor. The King of England has also 
made advances of the same sort, having sent him 
a letter with his royal autograph ; but to Portugal 
Senor Colon especially incHnes, since — " 

" Have we nurtured this needy petitioner so long, 
only to have him desert us for another patron?" 
interrupted Ferdinand. *' Call hither De Talavera." 

The bishop was already at hand, and came forward. 

" Take this letter, father, read it, and send a re- 
ply," said the king. " Command the immediate 
attendance of Cristoval Colon at Seville. Let him 
be well lodged at our expense. Hasten the conclu- 
sion of the Council in regard to him, or call a new 
conference if thou seest fit. Push the business with 



AN AFTERMATH. 9 1 

such energy that he will follow us in content till the 
campaign is ended. After that he shall have our 
more particular notice." 

With a wave of the hand the king dismissed the 
discussion of the matter, and Talavera went unwill- 
ingly to obey his commands. 

When Colon arrived in Seville, after a toilsome 
journey over swollen streams and dilapidated roads, 
— for it had been a winter of floods, — he once more 
experienced the hoUowness of royal promises. The 
conference of learned men which Talavera hastily 
summoned was less openly hostile than that of Sala- 
manca ; but Colon soon detected the weight of preju- 
dice still immovably fixed against him. The king 
sent him from time to time promises of a special 
audience, and assurances that he was more than ever 
disposed to favor his schemes, the pressure of busi- 
ness alone interfering. Although Colon attached no 
importance to these declarations, he did not dare 
to discredit them by refusing to remain. 

He found himself once more alone and superfluous 
in the midst of the intense enthusiasm of warlike 
preparations, and the gayeties of a court which, al- 
though remarkable for strictness of deportment and 
morals, was noted for pageantry and display. A few 
old friends remembered him ; and since the king was 
profuse in words of encouragement, it became some- 
what more the fashion to smile upon the Genoese, 
though the indulgence granted him was of the same 
sort as that which the court buffoon gained by his 
antics. 

The Marchioness of Moya, a favorite of the queen, 
and Santangel the treasurer, were among the stanch- 



92 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

est and most influential of his patrons. The mar- 
chioness was renowned for her well-preserved beauty, 
her vivacity, and tact. She was always surrounded 
by a crowd of fair maidens, daughters of the nobility 
and protegees of the queen ; and an attendant circle 
of young nobles, who fluttered like moths about this 
garden of beauty, happy to obtain a look or a 
smile. The marchioness was a strict duenna; and 
her nephew, Don Manuel de Bobadilla, was envied 
for his superior advantages of access to her presence. 
Since she often invited Colon to an audience, he fre- 
quently met the young man, who was connected in 
his mind with a painful remembrance, and who made 
no effort to retrieve the past by any apology. On 
the contrary, recognizing in the serious and sensitive 
nature of Colon fair game for jests, he seldom en- 
countered him without a covert insult, too insigni- 
ficant to resent, yet as tormenting as the sting of 
gnats. 

Don Manuel met Colon one morning in the mar- 
chioness's antechamber, and drew him aside with an 
air of solemn importance. "You need no longer 
regard my friend, Don Garcia de Silva, with appre- 
hension as a possible rival," he said. " He has 
come to-day to Seville with serious intent of redeem- 
ing the past by the assumption of three irrevocable 
vows. He is to marry an heiress, one of the queen's 
ladies. Dona Inez Pacheco de Osuna, whose charm 
Ues in her wealth rather than her beauty; he is to 
join the army in De Leon's command in the hopes 
of winning his spurs under such a chieftain ; and he 
means to make profession as a knight of the Order 
of Calatrava." 



AN AFTERMATH. 93 

" How is that possible? " asked Colon. 

" You think him not a fit subject," laughed Don 
Manuel. " Perhaps you are not aware that the king 
is now the head of the order, the knights may marry, 
and the vows of poverty in his case will not be too 
strictly enforced. He sees in it a road to fame, 
though for myself I should take a broader and an 
easier highway to reach that goal. But you would 
not know De Silva. He has become a fanatic almost 
equal to yourself." 

A shrill laugh sounded behind the speaker, and a 
young lady richly attired in silks and jewels confronted 
Don Manuel, to his evident dismay. 

"Ah, Don Manuel, I have been listening behind 
the curtain," she exclaimed. " I heard you mention 
the name of De Silva, and I thought it no harm to 
hear what further you had to say concerning him. He 
redeems the past by wedding me, and my charm is in 
wealth rather than beauty. I owe you much for your 
courtesy." 

" You have mistaken my words," stammered Don 
Manuel. 

She made a voluble reply, and he attempted to 
defend himself; but Colon heard only empty sounds 
to which he attached no meaning, for his mind was 
absorbed by the sight of a bracelet worn by the pro- 
spective bride, three ropes of Etruscan gold with a 
pearl clasp. When at last she turned with a pettish 
gesture of dismissal. Colon approached her. 

" Will you give into my hand that golden bracelet 
you wear?" he said. 

She looked at him in haughty surprise. 

" I have no gifts for mendicants," she said. 



94 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

Don Manuel stifled his laughter, becoming suddenly 
aware of the significance of the scene. 

"The bracelet belongs to my wife," said Colon, 
with dignity. " I purchased it in Genoa of a gold- 
smith who is my friend, and I gave it to her on our 
marriage-day. Don Garcia de Silva won it of her by 
a fraud which was equivalent to a theft. I ask its 
return of your generosity." 

The lady looked inquiringly at Don Manuel. 

" He speaks the truth," said the young man, mali- 
ciously, " so far as concerns the former ownership of 
the bracelet." 

Dona Inez removed the golden circle from her wrist, 
and flung it upon the floor. 

" You have conspired to oflend me," she cried, 
with tears in her eyes. Then she rushed from the 
room. 

Don Manuel picked up the bracelet, and handed it 
to Colon. 

" You have let loose the devil amongst us," he 
said. " The worst may come from the anger of a jeal- 
ous woman. Garcia may lose a rich bride by your 
means. Let me follow her, and declare that you were 
deceived by a fancied resemblance, and that I sup- 
ported you for a jest." 

Colon shook his head with a serious air. 

" I spoke hastily and without thought," he said. " I 
should be loath to offend an innocent woman ; but as 
for the result to Don Garcia, let it be as it may, no 
power could force me to speak a falsehood in order to 
undo it." 

Later in the day Don Manuel, wearing an expres- 
sion of unusual seriousness and concern, sought Colon 



AN AFTERMATH. 95 

out, and entered at once upon the subject uppermost 
in his mind. 

" I told you, Seiior Itahan, that your obstinate de- 
termination would undo my friend," he said ; '' but I 
little thought that so much would hinge upon your 
words. Dona Inez was beside herself with rage, and 
she went direct to the queen. Isabella, who is strict 
enough to split a hair where a question of morals is 
concerned, ordered an investigation, and unearthed 
much testimony damaging to De Silva, my protesta- 
tions being unnoticed, since I received a portion of 
the unmerited blame. Then she required that the 
king, as Grand Master of Calatrava, should take up 
the quest, and hunt poor Garcia's trifling fault to earth. 
A mountain is made out of a mole-hill. The king 
has ordered an examination, and you are to be sum- 
moned as witness. I beseech you, Sefior Colon, be 
generous. If I have offended you, I will even crave 
your pardon. It was all but a jest, and Garcia had 
no direct hand in it. We did but wish to make sport 
of your jealousy and doting fondness for your wife." 

Don Manuel's tone of mingled supplication and 
disdain was a curious indication of his changed rela- 
tion to the object of his insults ; but Colon did not 
rejoice in his enemy's discomfiture. 

" I have no power to be generous, Don Manuel," 
he said ; " I cannot make or unmake. I can but an- 
swer truth to the king's inquiries." 

" But you color the truth to suit yourself," said 
Don Manuel, angrily. *' Who would regard as of 
serious consequence a foolish youthful jest?" 

" It was no jest to me," said Colon, with a clouded 
brow. 



96 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

Don Manuel rose and paced the floor, casting 
fierce glances at the Italian. At last he turned on his 
heel, and left him, saying, " I shall not abase myself 
to plead with you ; but remember if you work Gar- 
cia's ruin you shall pay the penalty." 

An hour later Colon received the summons to ap- 
pear before the king in the great hall of the Alcazar. 
Ferdinand sat on his throne, arrayed in the im])osing 
robes of the Grand Master of Calatrava. Various 
members of the order stood about him ; and the queen 
was at his side, surrounded by her ladies. Dofia Inez 
had long since regretted the rash complaint which had 
led to consequences so serious. Her eyes were swollen 
with weeping, and she cast an indignant look at Colon 
as he entered and stood calmly confronting Don Garcia 
de Silva. 

A knight of the order who officiated as secretary read 
an epitomized account of the charges made against De 
Silva as an a]^plicant whose moral character should be 
unimpeachable. He was accused of obtaining a brace- 
lot by dishonest means from the noble wife of Seiior 
Colon, the Genoese, and of using it with an intent to 
injure the reputation of the lady, which was above 
suspicion. 

" Give thy testimony, Colon," said the king, with a 
cold expression of enforced impartiality. " Hast thou 
aught to add to or amend in this account of the 
matter? " 

Colon recounted the history of the pretended men- 
dicant, the ransom of the ring, and the use that 
had been made of the bracelet to awaken his jealous 
suspicions. Isabella was visibly affected. She frowned, 
and whispered to Doiia Inez a few words, which in- 



AN AFTERMATH. 97 

creased the young lady's agitation so much that she 
could no longer restrain her tears, but withdrew into 
the background witii her foce buried in her hand- 
kerchief. 

** What hast thou to reply, Don Garcia?" said the 
king, turning to the young nobleman with a look of 
sympathy rather than reproach. 

" I declare that this is a base conspiracy to injure me 
in the eyes of your Highness," said Garcia, eagerly, in- 
spired by the hope of the king's favor. " What wit- 
ness have you but the words of a doting husband, who 
is prone to jealousy as old men are if their wives are 
young and beautiful? I obtained the ring as he de- 
clares, and the lady ^av^ her bracelet to ransom it ; 
but she gave it willingly, for the sake of the love that 
was once between us, and did not chide me for my 
presumption. All know her honor to be spotless. 
None have suspected it but her own husband, who 
eagerly swallowed the poisoned bait of the jest we did 
contrive to test his constancy. It was a foolish jest, 
for which I crave his pardon and your indulgence ; 
but who should bear the blame rather than himself ? " 

Ferdinand was ready to accept the explanation 
and to end the inquiry ; but Isabella, reading his 
purpose in his look, rose in offended majesty. 

"As a woman I demand satisfaction for a woman," 
she exclaimed. " Let not Don Garcia de Silva think 
that he can with impunity lightly jest away a noble 
lady's reputation, — one, too, whom he pretends to 
have honored with his love. He has proved himself 
unable to recognize the sacredness of love. I refuse 
to consent to his alliance with one dear to me and in 
my charge. I beseech you that your distinguished 

7 



98 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

order shall not so lower its standard of chivalrous 
duty as to accept into its brotherhood one whose 
sense of honor is too dull to perceive what he owes 
to the protection and defence of pure and noble 
womanhood. As for my witness, the great Ximenes 
de Cisneros has given his testimony against Don 
Garcia." 

The words of the queen, vibrating with emotion, 
turned the scale. Ferdinand reluctantly declared 
that the application of Don Garcia for admission to 
the Order of Calatrava was refused. The conclave 
was ended. Don Garcia retired with an air of proud 
indifference, which did not betray the tumult of de- 
spair and indignation which he felt. Colon returned 
to his lodgings with a slow step and downcast head. 
He did not notice that in a turning of the path Don 
Garcia stood awaiting him. 

"Are you satisfied with your revenge?" cried 
Garcia, with fierce emphasis, laying his hand upon 
his sword-hilt. 

Colon fiiced him fearlessly. 

"The revenge is not of my seeking," he said. 
" You remember, Don Garcia, that you consented to 
await my challenge of Heaven's judgment upon you. 
That judgment has but now been given." 

His tone of prophetic denunciation impressed 
Garcia in spite of himself. He made no reply, but 
remained lost in thought as the Genoese passed him 
and entered his lodging. 



CHAPTER X. 



AN APPEAL. 



T N one of the towers of a building near the Alcazar, 
-*" reserved to the use of some favored prelates, and 
to various personages who followed the court in an 
unofficial capacity, Colon sat in the small apartment 
assigned to him, in conversation with Francisco 
Ximenes. This great man had thrown himself, heart 
and soul, into the preparations for the Moorish cam- 
paign which was to advance one step farther the 
banner of the Cross. Amidst these absorbing in- 
terests the conscientious and persevering priest did 
not forget the duty of using his personal influence to 
strengthen the power of the Church. He was already 
oppressed with a sense of the decay of religion and 
its need of revival. The monasteries, for the most 
part, were sunk in sloth and sensuality. The 
Moorish war was preached as a holy crusade ; but 
Ximenes knew well that the prevailing motive that 
urged it was greed for the rich cities and the fair 
and fertile lands of the infidels. 

The prelates who led their forces side by side with 
knights and princes were often cruel, haughty, and 
rapacious, advancing their ambition by the sacrifice 
of their spiritual life. The Church was outwardly 
rich and prosperous, but inwardly it was attacked by 



lOO COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

a mortal disease. The man who was to effect a re- 
ligious revival and the reformation of the monasteries 
by the power of his intense personality had, for the 
time, fixed his thoughts upon the Genoese as a soul 
fit to aid him in his work. He must first be brought 
within the ranks of the priesthood. His devout but 
undisciplined nature must be trained by austerity and 
self-renunciation to attain the heights of spiritual life. 
Then, Ximenes believed, the Church would gain a 
leader, a saint, an inspired prophet, who might well 
succeed in bringing countless heathen and newly 
discovered regions into the kingdom of righteousness, 
while he also aided in effecting the tremendous revo- 
lution in the Church's life at home, of which Ximenes 
dreamed. 

With this great thought in his mind, Ximenes hesi- 
tated for utterance. At last he said : " It can hardly 
be chance, Sefior Colon, which makes me for the 
second time a witness of thy humiliation for the same 
cause, — a woman's love. Bear with me if my words 
offend thee. The king who but lately favored thy 
suit now looks coldly upon thee. He regrets the 
disgrace of a young and promising man. The brave 
knights who surround him blame thee. Judged by 
the code of worldly honor, thou hast offended in 
that, while thou didst take no notice of an affront at 
the time it was offered, thou hast won for it at this 
late day a terrible revenge." 

" I cannot conform my conduct to the code of 
worldly honor," said Colon. " My vows as a Tertiary 
of Saint Francis forbid me to avenge an insult by a 
resort to arms. The penalty Don Garcia suffers has 
come through his own fault." 



AN APPEAL. loi 

" Yet many say that it is disproportionate to the 
offence," said Ximenes. " De Leon, since the young 
man's disgrace, has refused him a place in his com- 
mand. The king has given him an appointment in 
the rear guard. It is said that De Silva is desperate 
with the smart of his losses." 

" I pity him," said Colon, ''but I hold myself in- 
nocent of blame in the matter." 

" Thou art blind to the true proportion of thy du- 
ties and thy responsibilities," said Ximenes. "Thus 
wilt thou fall and stumble in the way, while thou dost 
grasp at once for the rewards of earth and heaven. 
' Anoint thine eyes with eye-salve, that thou mayest 
see.' Thou hast no call to be a Tertiary of Saint Francis, 
and the husband of a beautiful wife who needs de- 
fence from insult. Thou art called, as was Aaron, to 
be a priest of the Lord. The way of power and pro- 
motion would be open to thy talents. Thou mightest 
become bishop, cardinal. Pope, — who knows ? But 
my ambition for thee would be what it is for my- 
self, — remaining a simple priest to act as a regen- 
erating power within the Church, to convict it of sin 
and sloth, and to restore it as a spotless bride, in 
glorious raiment, to Christ. How gladly would I 
encourage the feeling of sympathy which draws me 
to thee ! My soul is lonely as is thine own, if thou 
didst but know it. What does thy wife know of 
thine inner life ? How does love advance thy spirit- 
uality? It is ever contrary to it. It is an earthly 
passion, which all the saints have fought and over- 
come. It debases, deludes, ensnares. It distorts 
the clear light of truth, and it is accompanied by a 
demon of jealousy that possesses a man's soul, mak- 



102 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

ing him desperate and vindictive, or weak from very 
shame. Break thy chains at the voice of duty, 
Cristoval Colon, and Heaven, that has so far thwarted 
and buffeted thee in thine endeavors, will bless thee 
from this day. Thy trials have been sent to teach 
thee, and thou hast not learned." 

"Spare me, my good father," exclaimed Colon, 
with a quick gesture, as if to defend himself from fur- 
ther importunity. " I would gladly accept the offer 
of your friendship with which you honor me, but I 
cannot follow you to your own lofty height. I can- 
not give up my love. You have not well defined it, 
noble Ximenes. A blind man cannot describe the 
rainbow or the colors of the summer sunset. The 
charm, the constancy, the ever- increasing tenderness 
of a good woman's affection have taught me the 
meaning of the words that bless true marriage : ' What 
God hath joined, let not man put asunder.' This 
love has depths of holy feeling as pure as the ecstasy 
of a saint, and the hopes and solicitudes of paternal 
affection bring us nearer the heart of God, who is our 
father." 

Ximenes sighed with upturned eyes ; then he pressed 
his lips tightly together before he replied, — 

" Marriage is honorable. The world can never be 
one great monastery of devoted souls, though heaven 
will be. But thou canst not know how keen is my 
disappointment to lose thee, Senor Colon, to see thee 
struggling on the common level, content with joys 
that perish. Very great is my grief to have mis- 
taken thy nature, — to find no response where I had 
hoped for sympathy and understanding. Yet I can- 
not believe that I have failed to read thee aright. 



AN APPEAL. 103 

Thou art what thou dost not know as yet. The mo- 
ment of consecration will come, and thou wilt accept 
it. One day, Cristoval Colon, thou must choose 
to forsake either thy love or thine ambition. The 
paths will diverge, and Heaven will not smile on 
both." 

He left the room with a grave farewell. His last 
words had the ring of prophecy ; and they remained 
long in Colon's memory, in the substratum that 
underlies consciousness, ready to return to the sur- 
face when favored by opportunity, and thus to 
work out their own fulfilment. For the present 
Colon felt only the sting of pain which comes from 
the disapprobation of one respected and admired. 
The reserved and self-contained Ximenes had opened 
his heart to him. He had thought him worthy of 
his friendship, and the offer had been rejected. 
Colon sighed regretfully ; but the thought of Beatriz 
and of Fernando defended him from too great 
self-reproach. 

He rose and stood by the window, where he looked 
down upon the smiling gardens, the housetops, 
domes, and spires of the city rising from a sea of 
verdure. Far away he caught the gleam of the Gua- 
dalquivir flowing gently towards the sea, — the river of 
Cordova, the home of his heart. The verses of a half- 
forgotten love-song came back to him, and hummed 
themselves over in his mind. Some doves were 
cooing and pluming themselves in the vines by the 
window. The soft spring air was full of the spicy 
odor of bursting blossoms and fresh growing things. 
The heart of Nature beat warm and strong. Life was 
infinite in its complexity; it was a vain effort to 



I04 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

reduce it to a narrow rule. The saintly Ximenes was 
mistaken in his premises, and the noble structure of 
his character was like the straight trunk of an oak 
with all its spreading branches lopped away, missing 
the beauty of its green exuberance. 

His look, which fell for a moment upon the wind- 
ing alleys of the garden below him, was suddenly 
arrested by the sight of a young man who entered 
alone, and flung himself down in an attitude of dejec- 
tion beside a fountain. Colon recognized Garcia de 
Silva, and a quick impulse of regretful pity caused 
him to descend hastily to the garden. 

Garcia saw him coming, and frowning rose to es- 
cape him ; but Colon detained him with an out- 
stretched hand. 

"Let us be friends, Don Garcia," he said; "let us 
forget the past. God inflicts the penalty for our ac- 
tions ; but weak human hearts must cherish mercy 
rather than deal justice, and forgive as they hope to 
be forgiven." 

Garcia stood confronting him with a lowering face. 
" It is easy for those who triumph to talk of forgive- 
ness," he said. "The Moor who constructed my 
horoscope spoke truth when he said that your star 
met mine in baleful conjunction. You have robbed 
me of all that is dear in life, — first of the love of Bea- 
triz, without which all else was of little worth ; then 
of my ambition, which you destroyed like a bubble at 
a touch : still you would have me forgive you. It is 
past reason. I shall hate you to my dying day, Sefior 
Cristoval Colon." 

Garcia spoke with a calmness which made the re- 
strained passion of his words more terrible and con- 



AN APPEAL. 105 

vincing. Colon bent his head, as if accepting with 
patience an unmerited reproach. He reaUzed in part 
the despair the young man suffered. Garcia's pur- 
pose of becoming a knight of Calatrava had been 
curiously compounded of selfish ambition and reli- 
gious feeling, the latter basing itself upon his memory 
of Beatriz's inspiring words. The spirit of the age 
was rude, coarse, and unscrupulous, but full of belief 
and enthusiasm. The example and character of Isa- 
bella the Catholic had infused an intense ardor for 
the faith into priest and knight alike, when they 
fought under her banners in the holy war. They did 
not vex themselves with analytic questionings of the 
motives of action or the minutiae of conduct. They 
expected to win heaven at the point of the sword 
dripping with the blood of the infidel. 

" I pity you — " began Colon. 

Garcia started, and a flush of anger crimsoned his 
cheek. 

"I have fallen low," he exclaimed with a hollow 
laugh. " Pity ! and from you ! " 

He looked about him with a restless expression 
of futile malice. His sword could strike the Geno- 
ese dead at a blow, but that would not fill the 
measure of his revenge. A sudden death is painless. 
His enemy must feel the greater torture of a life of 
misery. 

"■ I am beside myself with the hurt of my wounds, 
Seiior Colon," continued Garcia. " I have no time 
to stay for compliments. When shall we meet again ? 
Do you return at once to Cordova? " 

" No," answered Colon ; " I must of necessity fol- 
low the king till he gives me the audience he has 



I06 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

promised. I shall not wait inactive and useless; I 
hope to fight for the Cross in this campaign." 

"Then we may meet before Baza," said Garcia, 
lightly. " I am given the honorable position of guard 
to the illustrious ranks of the victuallers and chamber- 
lains of her Highness the Queen, and the sumpter 
mules and baggage-carts which bear her wardrobe and 
jewels. If fortune favors you also, Colon, we may 
fight side by side." 



CHAPTER XI. 

AT THE SIEGE OF BAZA. 

DON GARCIA'S bitter jest contained a prophecy. 
In one of the fiercely contested conflicts of the 
siege of Baza the crest of a wave of battle broke over 
the brow of a hill, and mingled victor and vanquished 
in wild confusion. The Moors were repulsed in an 
almost successful attempt to rescue the booty gained 
by a bold stratagem of the Christian marauders. A 
reinforcement had relieved the flying knights, and a 
champion had arisen to lead them to victory. 

In the ranks of the marauders Don Garcia had 
obtained a place. He had been welcomed by the 
hot-headed young nobles who contrived the enter- 
prise, — one of the many individual sallies which 
varied the siege, — with no regard to the formalities 
of military etiquette. Colon found himself in a posi- 
tion suitable to aid in the final rout of the enemy, and 
it was by his side that Don Garcia sank wounded with 
a sabre-cut across his temple. 

Colon, at great risk, bore his wounded companion 
out of the melee, and later obtained permission to 
carry him to his own tent and attempt his cure. The 
young noblemen who came to express their solicitude 
for their once popular companion shook their heads 
at the sight of his unconscious form. There was little 
hope of his recovery; but Colon, who saw himself 



I08 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

once more appointed Don Garcia's nurse and pro- 
tector, recognized again in it a leading of Providence 
which he could not disobey. He was constant in his 
care ; and the sick man recovered, but slowly, and 
with alarming lapses into unconsciousness. 

One evening Colon sat at the door of his tent. 
The invalid was sleeping. The camp lay under the 
light of a young moon, which revealed the long lines 
of circumvallation with which the besieged city was 
invested, — trench and palisado, and walls of earth 
and stone. Desolate stretches of burnt grass and 
blackened earth, with here and there a charred stump, 
or a heap of smouldering tree-trunks, replaced the 
groves and orchards which had once been the glory 
and the pride of Baza. The luxurious silken pavilions 
of the Spanish nobles were grouped in the valley under 
their gayly fluttering pennons, their escutcheons point- 
ing out the flower of the Spanish chivalry. A little 
city of the booths and tents of merchants and artisans 
had grown up about them to encourage and supply 
their taste for gorgeous decoration and display. There 
was everywhere the stir of bustling activity. 

In the midst of this movement of busy life, which 
seemed to Colon, as he watched it from his more re- 
mote position on the hillside, to resemble the coming 
and going of bees around a hive, there came a sud- 
den commotion, like the swarming of the bees about 
a common point. News, which flies fast, was not 
long in passing from the centre to the outposts. 

" Two friars from Palestine have brought a message 
from the Soldan," said a foot-soldier, in answer to 
Colon's inquiry. " He threatens to massacre every 
Christian in his domains, unless the war against the 



AT THE SIEGE OF BAZA. 109 

Moors be stopped. By Saint lago, an empty threat, 
which our king and queen are not likely to consider 
for the twinkling of an eye ! Let the Soldan and the 
Grand Turk, be they friends or foes with each other, 
look to manage their own affairs, as we Spaniards shall 
manage ours, without their help." 

This was the prevailing sentiment. A burst of 
patriotic indignation was the answer which the army 
gave, and it could not be doubted that their High- 
nesses' reply would be in the same spirit. Meantime 
the friars' weary pilgrimage had found a pleasant end- 
ing. From the highest noble to the humblest esquire, 
their audience of admiring listeners gave them sym- 
pathy and encouragement. They heard with kindling 
hearts their tales of the Holy Land and the sufferings 
of the Christians there. 

"What hinders us from beginning a new crusade?" 
the champion Del Pulgar cried, striking his sword- 
hilt, and looking into the enthusiastic faces about 
him. " When Granada is ours, why not carry our 
victorious arms into the fields of Palestine?" 

The world had moved forward from the times of 
the Crusades. The spirit of the Middle Ages was de- 
parting ; and the Ufe that with all its faults had been 
so vivid, intense, and picturesque, once gone, was 
never to be revived. The chivalrous enthusiasm with 
which the Spanish cavaliers welcomed the Soldan's 
messengers was a last flicker of an expiring flame. 

Its influence on one life alone was enduring. Colon 
was predisposed by the temper of his mind to accept 
an unusual event as an intimation of the divine will. 
If the suggestion of the rescue of the Sepulchre had 
come to him now for the first time, he would not so 



no COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

immediately have vowed his future to that end ; but, 
having cherished for years the same purpose as an 
ultimate goal to every path of ambition, he was over- 
powered by this singular enforcement of its claims 
upon him. He could not doubt that the two holy 
Franciscans were messengers of Heaven, whether 
they came in the likeness of men or of angels. 

He spent the night of their arrival in prayer. He 
made no attempt to seek them out. Their message 
to the king concluded, they would come, if it were so 
appointed, to him. If not, he had already heard, 
and he would obey. He watched the enthusiasm of 
the soldiers, and listened to their words with the calm 
attention of one who might some day be their leader, 
noticing this man's reckless valor and that one's more 
dogged persistence, assigning each his place in an 
imaginary army which was to sweep the land of the 
infidel with the resistless power of the Lord. He 
smiled as he recognized these dreams as such. It 
was idle to plan the manner or the time of the new 
crusade ; but that it was to be, and to succeed. Colon 
did not doubt. 

Don Garcia awoke from sleep while his protector 
was on his knees praying in the moonlight. His lips 
curled in contempt for the man who could fight val- 
iantly on occasion, but who mumbled over his beads 
like a woman or a priest. He could not reconcile the 
contradictions of strength and weakness in Colon's 
nature. He chafed beneath the sense of obligation 
to the man he hated. The pain of his wound had 
confused his head. He hardly remembered clearly 
why he hated him ; but he clung to the idea in the 
vacancy of half consciousness, when all the past 



AT THE SIEGE OF BAZA. ill 

seemed slipping away from him, and it grew stronger 
as health of mind returned. 

One day Colon, when handing him a cup of water, 
paused, as if repelled by the cold dislike his look ex- 
pressed. The tramp of horses' hoofs was heard, and 
a shadow fell across the tent. Placing the cup within 
reach of his patient. Colon hurried out. He had 
caught a glimpse of the two Franciscans, who were 
departing with the king's letters for a further visit to 
the queen at Jaen. As Colon reached them, the 
prior's horse stumbled, and a packet fell from the 
Franciscan's hand. Colon stooped and recovered it, 
while the prior reined in his horse and received it 
from him with a nod. 

" Give me your blessing, father," said Colon. 
" When you return to your convent, pray for me ; for 
in the days to come I purpose, with God's help, to 
deliver the Sepulchre from the hand of the Soldan." 

The prior stared, as if the man who stood before 
him in the garb of a common soldier were a harmless 
lunatic. He looked at his brother friar, who stooped 
with a friendly smile and asked, — 

" What is thy name, good friend ? Thou shalt have 
our prayers for thy worthy intentions." 
" I am Cristoval Colon," was the reply. 
*'I will try to remember the name," said the 
amiable Franciscan. 

" Some day," said Colon, *' I shall reach the Indies 
by a route that Heaven has pointed out to me across 
the western sea, and with the gold thus acquired I 
shall equip an army or else purchase from the Soldan 
the rescue of the Sepulchre." 

The elder friar, prior of the convent at Jerusalem, 



112 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

pursed his fat lips and tapped his forehead, with a 
significant glance at his companion. 

" Let us pass, my friend," he said, "■ for we have far 
to ride." 

" Would God your plan might succeed ! " said the 
other Franciscan. " There is need of rescue, let it 
come how it may." 

He nodded and smiled in the shadow of his cowl ; 
and the two rode on, and were soon lost to sight. 
Colon returned to his tent, struggling against his 
disappointment. 

"The purposes of God are not fulfilled as we 
expect," he thought. " His ways are not our ways. 
It is my human pride that has received a check, not 
the enterprise he has commanded. It would have 
been more to my liking to have had the brothers 
recognize me as the one to whom, rather than to the 
king, their message was sent. But why should I re- 
quire a further sign ? It was not needed, and I erred 
in seeking it." 

The grandeur of Colon's views in regard to the 
feasibility of his discovery, his unshaken confidence 
and perseverance in the midst of discouragement, 
have been much admired, because justified by success. 
His achievement was of unexampled greatness, since 
it was a new world to which he opened the road. 
The globe was wider than he believed it, and a vast 
continent lay as a barrier to the actual realization of 
his hopes. This unforeseen and disturbing element 
in his calculations was at once his glory and his ruin. 
We cannot doubt that had the crossing of a narrow 
sea led him to the rich shores of Eastern Asia, his 
wildest hopes would have been realized. Gold would 



AT THE SIEGE OF BAZA. 113 

have poured in upon him in lavish measure instead of 
in shallow and uncertain streams. Discontent and 
treachery would not so soon have attacked him, if 
opulence had made him powerful ; and the false and 
avaricious Ferdinand would have remained the friend 
of the man who had fulfilled every promise, and di- 
verted into his storehouse the treasures of the Khan. 

Then, too, his purpose of rescuing the Sepulchre 
would not have remained a visionary scheme to 
awaken even in his admirers a half-pitying smile. 
The age of the Crusades was over ; but gold was 
then as now all-powerful, and with shrewd foresight 
Colon had reserved to himself the alternative of pur- 
chase should arms fail. He would, we may imagine, 
have succeeded also in this. He would have gone to 
his grave full of honors, the acknowledged champion 
of the Church, rewarded with every dignity the Pope 
had power to bestow upon the defender of the Sepul- 
chre, the friend of kings, the powerful Viceroy of the 
Indies and Cathay, the leader in the conversion of 
the followers of Buddha and Confucius. 

America owes honor to the man who in discover- 
ing her "gave to Castile and Leon a new world," 
and gained for himself a felon's chain. Through the 
perplexities and confusion entailed upon his future by 
the colossal mistake whose significance he never fully 
realized, through the vexations and the heart-aches 
of his later years, we can recognize the guiding Provi- 
dence he trusted in, and the hand that led him by a 
way he knew not. 

Don Garcia roused Colon from his reverie by a 
pettish exclamation. He had made an attempt to 
rise from his bed, and had sunk back discouraged. 

8 



114 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

" Why did you not let me lie there and die where 
I fell?" he asked. "I should have been buried 
with honor, perhaps, and my disgrace would have 
been forgotten. Now I am helpless and in the way. 
When the wounded are sent to Jaen, I shall be carted 
off like useless rubbish. What lies before me? " 

" You will recover in the hospital the queen has 
established," said Colon. " When I obtain my com- 
mission from the king, you shall, if you choose, com- 
mand a ship in my fleet." 

" I should run it aground and sink it," said Garcia, 
with open defiance. " Why do you trust me ? I am 
not your friend. Some day you will wish you had left 
me to die." 

Colon treated the words with the indulgence he 
had given to the ravings of his delirium. When they 
parted a few days later, De Silva said again : " Re- 
member that I have warned you ; I have not deceived 
you. I owe you thanks, but I am your enemy." 

" Poor De Silva ! " exclaimed a young soldier who 
overheard this speech. " A cut on the head is bad 
for the brain. He will never be the same again." 



CHAPTER XII. 



A SILENT OR.A.CLE. 



"DEATRIZ was seated in the patio of her house one 
^ morning, with the Httle Fernando by her side, 
when her brother Rodrigo and his wife Antonia en- 
tered. The former went to see his father in his 
laboratory, while the latter remained with Beatriz. 
Of late the alchemist's household had been mainly 
supported by Rodrigo ; and this foct furnished Antonia 
with a pretext for constant interference in its affliirs, 
and for the gift of advice to Beatriz on all subjects, 
especially the proper rearing of a child. She seated 
herself with dignity beside her sister-in-law, and sur- 
veyed Fernando with an inquisitorial gaze. 

*' The child is dabbling his arm up to the elbow 
in the fountain," she exclaimed. " It should not be 
permitted. He has wet the sleeve of his coat, and 
by night he will be in a fever, and will need a barber 
to bleed him." 

" He is trying to catch the goldfish," said Beatriz, 
bestowing a radiant smile on the child. " He com- 
plains that they slip through his fingers. Come to 
thy mother, querido ?iinifo, and she will roll up the 
sleeve of thy little coat." 

The little fellow trotted toward her with both 
hands held high in the air. Beatriz caught them 



Il6 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

and kissed them on the wet palms ; then she rolled 
up the sleeves, and held him for a moment while she 
kissed his mouth, eyes, and hair. Fernando cried 
out half impatiently, though he was used to impetuous 
caresses. 

"Thou lovest thy mother, dost thou not?" she 
asked, as she released him. 

"Yes, indeed; and I love my father too," he an- 
swered in broken baby accents. 

Beatriz turned a look of maternal pride toward 
her visitor. 

" Poor child ! " said Antonia. " He knows not 
what he says ; though it is true that a man can be at 
the same time a good father and a bad husband." 

" What dost thou mean ? " exclaimed Beatriz, 
indignantly. 

" Thou knovvest right well that thou art and hast 
been most shamefully neglected," said Antonia. 
" How long has thy husband been away from thee? " 

" For seven months," answered Beatriz ; " but, as 
thou knowest, at the king's command. He is engaged 
in tedious and perilous marches, ambuscades and at- 
tacks, like the bravest of the king's soldiers. When 
the campaign is over, he will return." 

"When here he is never content unless planning 
to leave thee again," said Antonia. " If he loved 
thee, would he not remain at thy side? What call 
has he to fight the king's battles? He leaves thee 
without support, to the charity of thy relatives ; while 
he is at one time a Franciscan, then a soldier, then, 
as he plans, a sailor for the Indies. Thy beauty will 
fade like a flower which he has plucked and flung 
away. It was thus that Geraldini spoke of thee in 



A SILENT ORACLE. 117 

terms of pity to my husband. Colon's lack of love 
for thee is common talk." 

" Thou art cruel, Antonia ! " exclaimed Beatriz, 
with rising tears ; " and thou canst not have loved, if 
thou believest that absence destroys love." 

*' But he never loved thee, silly child ! " said Antonia. 
" He wedded thee wishing to rise by a noble alliance. 
It is to be hoped for thy sake that he will return alive. 
It is said that a flood has destroyed the camp at Baza, 
supplies are cut off, hundreds have died, and all are 
in danger of perishing." 

"Why didst thou not tell me this at first?" cried 
Beatriz, starting up and wringing her hands. 

" To what end? " asked Antonia. " If dead, thou 
canst not restore him ; if alive, thou canst not succor 
him." 

" Rodrigo is coming ; he will tell me the truth," 
said Beatriz, approaching her brother with a white, 
appealing face, and laying her hand upon his arm. 
"What news of the army?" she asked. 

"' I told her of the flood, the lack of supplies, and 
the death of half the force ; but she will not believe 
my words," said Antonia, pettishly. 

" No more than that is known," replied Rodrigo, 
gravely. " The floods have destroyed roads and 
bridges. No tidings can come to us till the rains 
in the mountains are abated ; but rumors of a great 
calamity leave the worst to be feared." 

Beatriz remained standing with bent head, motion- 
less and silent. Fernando, alarmed by the serious 
faces about him, ran to his mother, and hid his face 
in the folds of her gown. 

" I was about to speak to thee, Beatriz, concerning 



Il8 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

my father's health," said Rodrigo. " He is failing 
fast ; and his mind is more diseased than his body." 

Beatriz started. "Do you find him changed?" 
she asked. 

" Yes. He needs air and sunshine, more sleep, and 
less reading of his musty books, which with their 
ciphers and their occult calculations are enough to 
bewilder his brains. I blame myself for so long 
neglecting a proper oversight of his affiiirs ; since 
remonstrance was of no avail, I held myself aloof. I 
allowed him to waste his fortune and destroy his 
health ; to bestow thee upon a needy adventurer. I 
forbade with words, but I consented by my deeds. 
I blame myself; but it is too late for remedy." 

" Do not concern thyself for me, Rodrigo. I am 
happy in my lot," said Beatriz. 

" Happy ! " exclaimed her brother, with scornful 
emphasis. " Go and look at the old man, who sits 
alone there with whitening head and palsied hands. 
Canst thou be happy to behold him ? Look at thy 
child reared in poverty, with no future but that of de- 
pendence and insignificance, since from his father he 
will inherit neither wealth nor title. Consult thine 
own heart, and see if no youthful pride of womanhood 
and beauty revolts at neglect and loneliness. Thou 
art buried here as if sealed in a tomb. Why cherish 
hopes thou dost know to be false ? Face the truth 
like the worthy daughter of a noble race." 

" To what wouldst thou urge me by thy cruel words, 
Rodrigo? " asked Beatriz. 

" Forsake the Italian who has forsaken thee," an- 
swered her brother. " I will take my father, thee, 
and the child to my house. I will cherish the old 



A SILENT ORACLE. 119 

man, rear the child as becomes the rank of our fam- 
ily, give to thee a fixed sum for thy living, and an in- 
dependent position, — like that of a widow, for as 
such I shall regard thee. If thou dost choose to seek 
peace in a convent, thou mightest become a prioress. 
I have influence in the Church. This is the path of 
honor, dignity, and such happiness as remains for 
thee. If thou dost cling to thy empty dreams of 
what young fools call love, all is lost ; for the old 
man will not leave thee, the old house, and his perni- 
cious studies. I would receive the child alone, but 
I see by thy looks that thou wilt jealously retain him. 
Make choice then, — sacrifice the dearest of thy blood, 
or thine infatuation for the man who takes all and 
gives nothing, who will, if his plans succeed, more 
openly desert thee." 

" I promised truth to my husband in my marriage- 
vows," said Beatriz ; ''and that promise I shall keep 
while I live." 

Rodrigo turned on his heel with an exclamation 
of grief and vexation. Antonia rose and joined 
him. "In my young days," she said, "a girl had 
no choice of how she should wed, or where her 
old father should live or die. Her relatives might 
put her by force into a convent, if she were willful 
and disobedient." 

She took her husband's arm, and led him to the 
outer door. 

"Thou mayst repent of thy decision, Beatriz," said 
Rodrigo. " When thou art ready to fulfil my wishes, 
my door is still open to thee." 

Beatriz sank upon the floor weeping convulsively. 
The child began to cry loudly in sympathy. " Hush, 



I20 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

dearest ! thou wilt disturb thy grandfather," said 
Beatriz. Then she sat silent with fixed and dreamy 
eyes ; and the child fell asleep in her arms. After a 
time the young mother arose and laid Fernando in his 
cushioned basket. She went to look at her father, 
and found him sleeping in his chair. The house was 
so silent that Beatriz could have shrieked to relieve 
her overtaxed nerves and break the heavy stillness. 

" Is he alive? " she asked herself. " Oh, if I could 
but know ! " 

She wandered into the garden, and sat alone under 
the pomegranate- tree, whose leaves fluttered down 
one by one when the autumn wind shook them. She 
gazed at the Psyche ring on her finger. Had it 
proved a jewel of evil omen? The wonderfully mi- 
nute carving was as clear-cut as ever; the winged 
Love was still departing. The ring recalled Don 
Garcia and the banquet where he had told her the 
story of the prophetic crystal. Could the Moor- 
ish astrologer divine the fate of the army and the 
present condition of her husband? Could he tell 
whether he were alive and well, and at this moment 
thinking with fondness of wife and child, or lying 
drowned amid the debris of an inundated camp, his 
blue eyes fixed and glassy? 

Beatriz started to her feet, wrapped herself in her 
veil, and hurried into the street. She knew the loca- 
tion of the astrologer's house ; for in former days her 
father had often consulted him. She passed through 
the familiar streets like one walking in a dream. 
Anxiety for her husband was mingled with distress 
at Rodrigo's displeasure. Her brother, twenty years 
her senior, had always been to her a model of per- 



A SILENT ORACLE, 121 

fection and a guide to duty. She had never vexed 
him until she had married against his wishes. 

The house of Ben Hamet stood alone in a Httle 
grove of orange-trees. Worn and broken brick steps 
led to the arched entrance, where, immediately within, 
a staircase descended to a cellar, and another led up- 
ward to a turret, while the wide hall conducted to a 
small patio completely shaded with the intertwined 
branches of large evergreen trees, which made a cool 
twilight within the court and under its arched colon- 
nades. The door stood half open, hanging by one 
rusty hinge. Weeds grew in the cracks of the pave- 
ment. There was an air of desolation and decay 
about the place. Beatriz ascended the stairs of the 
turret, and knocked at the door of the room where 
the astrologer had of old conducted his studies and 
watched the stars. There was no response ; but a 
noise of shuffling footsteps resounded in the hall be- 
low. Beatriz looked over the balustrade as an old 
woman appeared, who pushed back her hood and 
curved her hand behind her ear to hear the response 
as she demanded, "Whom do you seek?" 

*' Ben Hamet, the Moor," answered Beatriz. 

" He died long ago of the plague," said the old 
woman. " Everybody is dead here. Do not make 
so much noise." 

With this she shuffled away, leaning upon her staff, 
her palsied head shaking from side to side. Beatriz 
stood for a moment irresolute. The door of Ben 
Hamet's chamber was ajar. She pushed it, and it 
opened on creaking hinges. She entered the little 
circular room, where the sunshine fell from the win- 
dows upon the deserted implements of the astrologer's 



122 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

industry, — a compass and an astrolabe, strange dia- 
grams of the House of Life and the position of the 
stars at various seasons, a small telescope, and on a 
table draped with black a crystal globe in which each 
of her movements made curious reflections. Dust lay 
thick over all ; and spiders spun their geometric webs 
in every corner. 

A chair of carved wood stood before the black- 
draped table ; and Beatriz seated herself and leaned 
forward breathless, with half-fearful expectation of a 
vision in the crystal as she fixed her eyes upon it. 
It was dim, and she brushed the dust from its surface 
with an unsteady hand. Here Ben Hamet had sat 
and read the story of her future, while Don Garcia 
had watched a cloud arise upon the glass. Neither 
a cloud nor a moving picture now appeared ; nothing 
but glints of light and patches of shade deep within 
the globe, giving tantalizing suggestions of forms that 
might appear to the eye of the seer. Beatriz sighed. 

"Was the prophecy true?" she thought. "Are 
we to be forever divided ? What but death can divide 
hearts that love? " 

She felt a pang of terror and despair. There was 
a stir in the room behind her, a faint whir of flutter- 
ing wings. Beatriz screamed and rose in alarm, over- 
turning the table with her hasty movement. A bat 
had left its lurking-place in a dark corner, and after 
circling about her head it flew out into the dusky hall. 
The crystal globe lay upon the floor, shattered into a 
hundred fragments. 

When Beatriz returned to her home, she found 
Teresa soothing the Uttle Fernando, who was calling 
for his mother. 



A SILENT ORACLE. 123 

"Why, where have you been?" asked the old 
nurse. " Don Pedro came to seek you with good 
tidings. None but evil rumors have hitherto reached 
the city, but now that the roads are repaired messen- 
gers come crowding in. The queen — may the saints 
bless her ! — has had six thousand foot-soldiers rebuild- 
ing bridges and causeways. She has engaged great 
store of supplies for the army, and, better than all, 
has gone herself to the camp. The siege will soon 
be raised now." 

"And is my husband safe? " asked Beatriz. 

" If not, the news would have reached us," said 
Teresa, beginning a crooning lullaby. 



CHAPTER XIII. 



THE SAN CRISTOVAL. 



"D AZA had surrendered. The campaign was over. 
-■-^ The final attack against Granada was not to be 
undertaken till the following year. The Spanish Court 
was in Seville, engaged during the winter and spring 
in a round of festivities in honor of the marriage of 
the Princess Isabella with the heir of Portugal. The 
suit of Colon had not yet been heard, and he returned 
to Cordova. The welcome he received made him 
forget his disappointment. 

"Canst thou not be content with love ? " Beatriz 
said to him one summer evening, as they sat together 
upon the house-top, with Fernando asleep upon a 
cushion at their feet. " Life is so sweet when it 
passes thus tranquilly. Why need we by our own 
choice disturb it? " 

"Thus didst thou speak, dear one, when I went 
to Salamanca, and I did chide thee then," answered 
Colon. " I cannot chide thee now. My own heart 
inclines so strongly to obey thee — to give up buffet- 
ing the waves of life, to lay down my arms, and 
take a truce from care. But I must obey the will 
of God." 

"Must we part again?" asked Beatriz, placing her 
arm about his neck. " Say no, I entreat thee ! " 



THE SAN CRTSTOVAL. 1 25 

" Not for many months, it may be," he repHed. 

'* Months are Hke days when thou art with me, 
Hke years when we are apart," said Beatriz. *' Some- 
thing tells me that if thou leavest me again it will 
be forever ! " 

" It is thy foolish fear that speaks to thee," an- 
swered her husband. " Thou art like a timid child, 
afraid of the shadow that thou dost make thyself." 

*' But thou wilt not plan nor scheme to leave 
me," she urged. " How can we tell that we do 
the will of God when we shape all to fit our own 
wishes?" 

" It is the spirit of God that urges our wills, and 
drives us to desire hard things, and to forsake ease 
and pleasure," answered her husband. " My wish is 
never to leave thee, but the fulfilment of my destiny 
often requires it." 

Beatriz sighed. 

" Have I saddened thy young life by linking it to 
mine?" asked Colon, looking at her with tender 
concern. 

" No, no ! " said Beatriz, quickly. " Rodrigo has 
been talking to thee." 

•' I have not conversed with him," said Colon ; " but 
I have heard that thy brother and his friends speak 
harshly of me, as one who allows thy youth and 
beauty to fade and pine in neglect. It cut me to 
the heart." 

" Do not listen to such words," said Beatriz, with a 
playful smile. " Does it seem that I have grown so 
ill-favored of late?" 

"Thou art more beautiful than ever before," he 
answered, " yet it is but a sad lot which thou dost 



126 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

share with me. I hoped ere this to spread the silks 
and jewels of Cathay at thy feet." 

" No jewel of the Indies could be more precious 
to me than that which I possess," answered Beatriz, 
pointing to her sleeping child. The eyes of Colon 
shone with tears, while his heart expanded with 
tender emotion. He took his wife's hand, and kissed 
it with loving reverence. 

This was a happy year. The persevering industry 
of the Genoese made him renowned as a maker of 
charts and maps, for which there was sufficient sale 
to yield him a moderate income. The house in the 
Court of Pomegranates became a resort for the lead- 
ing minds in the brilliant society of Cordova, — sci- 
entific men who were votaries of the new learning, and 
freed from the shackles of ancient prejudice ; poets 
and artists who found food for the imagination in the 
inspired rhapsodies of the Genoese and the wonder- 
ful beauty of his wife. The feeble old Don Fernando 
was not neglected. The presence of his daughter's 
husband consoled him for the absence of his sons. 
Pedro had gone to study at Salamanca. Diego and 
Rodrigo came only at rare intervals, to avoid the 
appearance of a breach in the flimily. 

Fernando's fourth birthday was celebrated by a 
feast under the trees, and a sail upon the river. 
When they returned from this excursion in the cool 
of the evening, Colon and Beatriz entered the cathe- 
dral for prayer ; while Fernando, happy but half asleep, 
was carried home by his nurse. 

"Dost thou remember?" Colon asked his wife as 
they knelt before the shrine of the Virgin, where 
since their first meeting their steps had often turned. 



THE SAN CRISTOVAL. 12 7 

Beatriz made no reply, but her hand stole into his. 
When they came out, they sought the bench under 
the orange-trees, and sat there awhile, conscious of 
sentimental folly and taking pleasure in it. 

"All comes back to me as if it were yesterday," 
said Colon. " Wonderful are the leadings of Provi- 
dence ! It was at this season, and the breeze came 
just as now from the river. Then I was a stranger 
and alone. Now — " He finished the sentence with 
a look more eloquent than words. 

" It seems to me that I am greatly changed," said 
Beatriz. "I look back upon my old self as upon 
another being. My life was then like a shut bud ; it 
is now like a rose full blown in the sunshine." 

Colon took her hand and kissed it. 

"A beautiful simile," he said. "I will give thee 
another. Our life is like the stream of the Guadal- 
quivir. The river is ever the same ; yet the water 
that flowed then under its bridges has long since lost 
itself in the sea, and that which we see to-day will 
quickly pass and change." 

"When we are sad, we long for change; when 
happy, we fear it," remarked Beatriz. " I should like 
to say to the river, 'Stand still;' and to the days, 
* Remain ; let me ever sit here beside my husband, 
under the orange-trees.* " 

Their eyes met in a smile, and they rose and 
walked slowly homeward. At the door of the house 
Teresa met them. 

" The reverend Sefior Antonio Geraldini is here," 
she said. " He has brought with him his brother and 
a notable painter from Seville. I lighted the candles 
in the hall, and they are seated there about the table, 



128 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

though I had nothing to put before them but sour 
wine and some fruit." 

The sound of cheerful voices came from the wide 
hall, which had often been the scene of gayety in 
former years. Don Enriquez sat bolstered up in his 
great armchair, smiling with an old man's vacant 
good-humor at his guests. The two tall, smoking 
candles upon the table cast long shadows across the 
stone floor, and deepened the gloom under the arches 
of the ceiHng. 

Sanchez de Castro, the artist, was seated near 
Enriquez and beside Antonio Geraldini. His long 
gray beard and the scanty locks that shaded his fore- 
head made him appear older than he actually was ; 
but his large, deep-set eyes were full of fire. His 
expression was that of repressed impetuosity. His 
manner was quiet and reserved ; but an occasional 
quick gesture, or a movement of the full, sensitive 
mouth showed inward emotion. He had an inborn 
love of the beautiful which amounted to a passion. 
The revival of Greek learning had brought the influ- 
ence of Attic grace and beauty from the storehouses 
of ancient art and mythology. The nymphs and 
goddesses, fauns and dryads, had left their ancient 
haunts to trip and dance henceforth through the 
productions of poet and artist. De Castro had caught 
a glimpse of their gleaming forms and *' wreathed 
smiles ; " but they would not stay for his pencil. 
The traditions of the Spanish school of painting 
required that he should walk in a straight and nar- 
row path. Sacred subjects were considered to fur- 
nish the only proper motive for the brush ; and the 
beauty of the human form must be hidden by care- 



THE SAN CRISTOVAL. 129 

fully adjusted draperies. The work of De Castro 
was far from expressing his ideals. He was pained 
by a sense of limitation, almost of failure. 

He rose with the others when Colon and his wife 
entered. His eyes were fixed upon Bcatriz with 
such an intensity of admiration that she colored and 
placed herself at a distance from him as she seated 
herself. 

"What beauty!" he murmured. Then he turned 
to Colon. " I wished to see you, Seiior Cristoval 
Colon," he said, " because, although you were but 
lately brought to my notice, it seemed to me that 
I had known you when I painted long ago my San 
Cristoval in the church of San Julian in Seville." 

" You know that gigantic work which is so worthily 
admired," said Geraklini. 

Colon nodded, and his eyes shone with the pleas- 
ure of one who finds a secret thought sympatheti- 
cally understood by another. 

" I have knelt before that painting, and I have 
said to myself, ' It is a prophecy,' " he answered. 

** Your name is Cristoval," continued De Castro, 
'* and through the raging waters of the sea you will 
bear the Christ to the heathen world." 

Colon extended his hand to the artist, who sat 
opposite to him. His face was full of emotion. 

" How have you thus divined my interpretation 
of the history of the blessed saint whose namesake 
I am?" he asked. "You have continued, in the 
words I should have used, the sentence I began." 

De Castro smiled. " I have caught the enthusiasm 
of our friends here who believe in your future," he 
answered ; " and I have trained my eyes to look 

9 



130 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

below the surface of my canvas and beneath the 
exterior of life's events. An artist or a poet is a 
prophet, as are all whose actions are guided by an 
inward force which is superior to the laws of outward 
being." 

Beatriz looked at the artist as if puzzled by the 
obscurity of his words. Colon's smile grew brighter. 
Don Enriquez nodded. 

" My son-in-law here is a prophet," he said ; "but 
his words never come true." 

"He succeeds where others fail," said Alessandro 
Geraldini. " It seems otherwise, because his hopes 
are more exalted than other men's." 

" Yes," said Antonio. " I feel sure of final success 
for you, Colon ; but this last struggle before Granada 
engages the attention of all but a few men of peace, 
like myself and our friends here, who care less for 
the triumphs of arms, glorious though they be, than 
for the conquests of science and art." 

"Have you heard the latest news from the war? " 
asked Alessandro. " Cordova is ringing with the 
name of Hernando del Pulgar. He lately entered 
the streets of Granada by night, — through the walls 
and past the watch, none know how, — and nailed 
with his dagger to the door of the infidel mosque 
a tablet inscribed Ave Maria, thus dedicating the 
temple to the Blessed Virgin." 

"It was a noble deed," said Colon. 

"A fine subject for a painting," said Geraldini 
to the artist. 

"Cordova rings, as you say, with his name," re- 
marked De Castro ; " but it has only scorn or pitying 
tolerance for that of our friend Cristoval Colon. The 



THE SAN CRISTOVAL. 131 

world goes after noise and show like a crowd follow- 
ing a box of marionettes with its tinkling bells. The 
patient sentinel at his post on the plains of Granada 
is forgotten ; but the dashing cavalier who rides 
through the lines is a hero. Can you interpret this 
parable as well as the other, Senor Colon?" 

" You mean by your words to advise me to more 
decided action?" asked Colon. 

'' I have not known you long enough to dare to 
give advice," said the artist. 

** Yet I would gladly listen to it," said Colon. 

" Leave Spain," said De Castro, impetuously. 
"Seek a field that will yield a better return than a 
harvest of weeds for years of tillage." 

" Let him wait but a little longer," said Geraldini. 
" We have but lately sent a petition to the king and 
to the prior of Prado, De Talavera, urging an imme- 
diate decision from the Council, whose answer has 
been nearly five years delayed. Such an answer has 
been promised, and will soon reach us. Till then 
he must be patient." 

"I had not heard of this," said Beatriz, with a 
quick glance at her husband, who was sunk in ab- 
straction, and did not notice her words. 

" Yes," he said at last, raising his head and looking 
at De Castro, " that answer will decide my future. 
If unfavorable, I shall bid farewell to Spain, and 
begin anew my suit at the Court of France." 

" Hast thou had this determination long in mind? " 
asked Beatriz. 

Her husband started as if he were for the first time 
aware of her presence. "Since this campaign be- 
gan," he answered. " Geraldini helped me write 



1^2 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

the letters and despatch them to the sovereigns at 
Granada, three months ago." 

Beatriz smiled, for De Castro's eyes were upon 
her. She rose, and excused herself to her guests. 
" My child is expecting a good-night from me," she 
said. 

De Castro followed her with his look as she left the 
room. 

" Oh for the power to transfer that face to canvas ! " 
he exclaimed. 

" Do so," said Geraldini. "Your renown will be 
further increased by the choice of such a subject. 
When Colon is more famous than Del Pulgar, the 
world will crown with laurel the painter of the por- 
trait of his beautiful wife." 

De Castro shook his head. 

" My pencil is only fit for rugged figures like the 
San Cristoval ; " he said, " my mind is full of shapes 
of beauty, but they escape my grasp." 

" The Virgin in your Annunciation is a beautiful 
figure," said Colon. 

"You have seen it?" asked De Castro. "It does 
not satisfy me. I wished to express a look of heav- 
enly ecstasy, and I have caught only a woman's 
gentle smile." 

" Confess no lack in your performance even among 
friends," said Antonio Geraldini. " When my verses 
win praise, I do not declare how much better they 
should have been ; but I well know that a haunting 
spirit sings within my mind words that I can never 
catch." 

Meantime Beatriz, in her turret, was bending over 
her sleeping child. A tear fell upon his pillow. 



THE SAN CRISTOVAL. 133 

" Thy love, my Fernando, is complete, and in thy 
heart I have no rival," she said. "Wilt thou ever, 
with smiles and kisses on thy lips, plot to desert me, 
and leave me desolate? " 

Having said this, her conscience smote her, as if 
she were accusing her husband to another. 

« Why is it that a stranger wins his confidence sooner 
than his wife? " she asked herself. " It is not from 
any fault of his. No, it is because he fears that my 
patience will not bear the test ; that he will find with 
me no responsive sympathy, nothing but selfish oppo- 
sition. Others recognize him as a saint and a prophet ; 
the wife who loves him alone discredits his mission." 

Beatriz took from a chest an illuminated manuscript 
of the lives of the saints, a treasure which had de- 
scended to her from her mother; and turning its 
pages, she found the story of San Cristoval. The illu- 
minated title showed the picture of a giant bearing 
through the water the tiny Christ-child, crowned with 
glory. Beatriz read : — 

" The blessed Cristoval, whose name was once Ado- 
kimos, the Unrighteous, was a native of Palestine, and of 
prodigious size and strength. He was of twice the ordi- 
nary stature of man. So proud was he of his mighty 
frame that he would serve only the greatest and the one 
feared by all. When the great Prince who was his mas- 
ter let him see that he feared the Devil, Adokimos left 
him to enter into the service of the Devil who was yet 
greater than the Prince. One day, when walking with his 
new master through a wood, Adokimos saw the Devil 
tremble before an image of the Christ. Henceforth he 
would find this new master, and serve him who was great- 
est of all. Search as he would, he could not find him. 
For penance for his past sins a holy hermit set him the 



134 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

task of carrying Christian pilgrims over a deep and angry 
stream. One day a child came to the stream. The giant 
gladly took him on his shoulders; but soon he began to 
sink beneath the weight of his burden. He struggled 
on, and when the shore was reached, the Christ shone 
in glory before him. ' Be thou called henceforth Cristo- 
fero, the Christ-bearer,' said he, ' and carry my name to 
the heathen world. Thou shalt suffer a martyr's death, 
but on earth thou shalt be worshipped as a saint, and in 
heaven receive a martyr's crown.' " 

Returning the manuscript to its cover, Beatriz sat 
thinking deeply. Then, with a sudden impulse, she 
fell upon her knees, and prayed for faith and the power 
of self-renunciation. 



CHAPTER XIV. 



A VOW TO LOVE. 



n^HE artist, De Castro, had asked and obtained 
permission to paint the portrait of the Italian 
chart-maker. He would take no return in money, but 
a carefully executed map of the world was his fee in 
advance. The isle of St. Brandon was depicted on 
the map at a convenient distance from the Cape de 
Verde Islands, and almost on a parallel with it the al- 
luring outline of Cipangu, rich in spices, precious 
stones, and gold ; then the Indian Archipelago, full 
of islands abounding in gold ; and the outline of the 
mainland, drawn at a less distance from the shores of 
Europe than other cosmographers had allowed. In- 
stead of the monsters and dragons which usually filled 
the vacant spaces with suggestions of terror, De Castro 
himself drew about the margin scrolls, and wreaths of 
laurel, and in each corner a cornucopia, emblem of 
plenty. 

Colon enjoyed the sittings for his portrait ; for the 
artist was no less sympathetic and encouraging than at 
the first, and his talk helped to beguile weary hours of 
despondency. Beatriz and Fernando would look in 
upon the work now and then ; and De Castro, pausing 
with uplifted brush, would fix his fiery eyes upon them 
and exclaim, — 

" Remain as you are without moving. Oh that I 
could paint your faces ! Some day I will make the 



136 COLUMBUS AND BEATKIZ. 

attempt." But the shapes of beauty in the master's 
mind never took form upon his canvas. The portrait 
of Colon, however, grew and was completed. 

" It is my father," said Fernando, when the picture 
was placed on view before the family, " but he does 
not smile at me." 

" He does not see thee," said Beatriz. " His eyes 
look far away from us." 

"You have divined my purpose," said De Castro. 
" Iwery work of art should have its inner meaning. A 
picture without a soul is canvas and paint, and naught 
besides. The eye is the loophole whence the soul 
looks out. In this case Senor Colon is represented as 
gazing forward across the sea, from the prow of his 
vessel let us say, whence he is soon to behold the 
shore of Cipangu rise in a blue line across his sight." 

" De Castro, I shall never forget thee and thy words 
of cheer," said Colon, giving him his hand. 

The day of the unveiling of the portrait was full of 
excitement. A royal messenger came in with de- 
spatches, and among them a letter to Senor Cristoval 
Colon, written by the secretary of the prior of Prado, 
informing him that although the final opinion of the 
Council was unfavorable to his project, which was con- 
sidered to be vain and impossible, nevertheless, such 
was their Highnesses* interest in him and his under- 
taking, that when relieved from the cares and expenses 
of the wars they should have both time and inclina- 
tion to treat with him concerning it. 

Colon had opened his letter with trembling fingers. 
He read it while Beatriz stood near in anxious sym- 
pathy. It fell from his hand, and she picked it up and 
mastered its contents. Then they both remained 



A VOW TO LOVE. 137 

silent. It was as if a terrible calamity had occurred, 
whose consequences could not at once be foreseen. 
Beatriz lightly touched her husband's shoulder, as he 
sat with his head bent upon his hands. He lifted his 
face to hers. 

" Do not lose courage," she said. " Thou must 
succeed. At the Court of France thou wilt be treated 
with more consideration, and more quickly heard. 
Thou hast many powerful friends who will help thee 
there as they could not at home. When one door is 
shut, another opens." 

" Thou hast cast a soothing balm upon my hurt," 
exclaimed Colon, with ardent gratitude. " What pained 
me most was the thought that thou wouldst seek to 
hold me now when I must go, and that to tear myself 
from thine arms would be to lose all comfort in part- 
ing. A holy man once said to me, ' Some day thou 
must forsake either thy love or thine ambition.' It 
seemed to me that the hour had come, and it cut me 
to the heart with cruel pain." 

" No, no," cried Beatriz, with tears in her eyes ; 
" that hour shall never come. I will consider thee 
alone ; I will be patient. Trust my love ; imagine 
not that it can ever fail thee in any test thou mayst 
put it to. I have been weak and self-seeking ; I 
mean now to uphold thee with my strength, if the 
Blessed Virgin, who suffered pain through love, will 
grant me aid." 

Her husband pressed her hand. 

" May God bless thee, my wife ! " he said. " Live 
for thy child ; bring him up well. He will be a com- 
fort to thee ; and my little Diego — not so little now 
— I will send to thee. He needs a mother's care. 



138 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

The worthy friars of La Rabida, who have so long 
benevolently sheltered and instrueted him, will receive 
me again when I seek their port to take passage for 
France. Then I will say farewell to my Oiego, and 
send him to thee. Thus all the treasures of my heart 
shall be in one home nest, sheltered and safe." 

" Thou wilt return to us? " said Beatriz, suppressing 
a sob. 

" When the Lord wills," answered Colon, gravely. 

Beatriz took his hand and beckoned with an impe- 
rious gesture. 

" Come with me," she said. 

He rose and obeyed ; and she led him to an inner 
room, where Fernando was sleeping, his arm under 
his head, and the golden curls straying about his tem- 
ples, while the hand that fell at his side grasped an 
unstrung bow. De Castro would have seen in him a 
motive for a sleeping Cupid. Beatriz knelt beside 
the couch ; and her husband, following her silent com- 
mand, fell on his knees beside her. 

"Thou must make a vow with me," she said. ** I 
am afraid of the cruel words of that holy man thou 
speakest of. Take my hand and Fernando's." 

He obeyed ; and Beatriz, clasping the other hand of 
the unconscious cliild, gave her husband her own, and 
the three completed a circuit electric with love. 

" Promise before God, as I do," said Beatriz, " that 
only death shall divide us ; that though waves may 
roll between us, and distant may be the day of our 
reunion, thou wilt be true to me as I to thee ; that 
ambition shall not lead thee to forget me ; that 
whether success or failure attend thee, thou wilt re- 
turn to me, before all others, for comfort or applause. 



A VOW TO LOVE. 139 

Thou wilt find waiting for thee a heart of love, whose 
depths thou hast never sounded." 

Colon repeated the words of the vow, and said, " I 
promise." 

lieatriz leaner! her forehead upon their clasped 
hands, and they Ixjth rennained for a time in silent 
prayer. Then she arose with an exalted look of self- 
forgetful determination. 

" Make a list of the articles thou shalt need for thy 
voyage," she said. " 1 will purchase thern in the city. 
I will sell my jewels, for I shall not deck myself with 
gems while I am widowed and alone. If thou bring- 
est me from the Indies those which thou dost prom- 
ise," — here a smile lighted her grave face, — "I shall 
make myself splendid with them to greet thy return." 

" Thy beauty needs no adornment," said Colon. 

Beatriz treasured the compliment, as she did every 
rare word of love from her husband, whose feelings 
were deep and silent, and seldom found the outward 
expression a woman delights in. Even now he spoke 
half aVjsent-mindedly. Great thoughts were pressing 
upon him. The lessening years of life seemed all too 
short for the work that remained to be done. Already 
he was gazing forward with the look of intense eager- 
ness which De Castro had caught and fixed upon his 
canvas. He accepted gratefully, but mechanically, 
the daily sacrifices that Beatriz made. Enriquez la- 
mented the coming change in his household. All 
change vexed him now. Beatriz soothed the fretful 
old man, and calmed Fernando's childish impatience 
and regret at the idea of losing his father, who was at 
once his hero, his playmate, and his friend. 

"When will he come back? " he asked with child- 



I40 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

ish reiteration, a dozen times a day, as he followed his 
mother about the house. Each time the question 
caused a quick pain in Beatriz's heart. Into every 
garment which she folded, she dropped a tear. The 
purse of gold which she had obtained from the sale of 
her jewels, she stowed away with loving wishes in the 
depths of the aljorjas which the mule was to carry at 
the saddle-bow. 

She attended with cheerful patience to the guests 
who came to bid farewell, from motives of curiosity or 
interest. Since the singular Genoese was to desert 
them, those who had known him in Cordova awoke to 
the fact that his eccentric genius included the possi- 
bilities of future greatness. They regretted that he 
was to carry his plans to a foreign court. In case 
there should be an element of truth in his project, 
Spain would be a loser. Rodrigo de Arana — ** the vir- 
tuous gentleman," as the chronicler calls him — came 
among the others. He was secretly pleased with the 
decision of his sister's husband, which would leave 
Beatriz free for an indefinite period. Even should 
she still refuse to leave her home for Rodrigo's house, 
he knew that she must be to a greater extent under 
his influence, and he looked forward to having at some 
future time the guardianship of her son. 

Rodrigo, therefore, expedited the departure of Co- 
lon, procuring for him passports and letters which 
recommended him to persons of influence in the 
court of Charles VIII. 

At last the day arrived, which Beatriz dreaded as if 
it were to witness her execution, — the day of Colon's 
departure from Cordova. The trivial details of life 
seemed intolerable to her at such a time. The eating 



A VOW TO LOVE. 141 

of the breakfost ; the clatter of the servants' shoes 
about the room; the harnessing of the mule, and 
Fernando's gay comments upon his appearance, and 
his flither's looks when mounted, — all were like 
painful intrusions upon the sacredness of the grief of 
parting, which had its one supreme moment when 
her husband held her in his arms for the last kiss. 
The moment was supreme; but it passed, and he 
was gone. She watched him out of sight. The 
sound of his mule's hoofs grew fliinter. It was no 
longer heard. Beatriz flung her arms into the air. 
She did not see Fernando, as she ran past him and 
into the garden like one distracted. 

"Has my mother gone too?" asked the child, 
beginning to cry. 

" Hush ! " said old Teresa. " She has gone away to 
weep, and tears will do her good. She will come back 
to you again in an hour." 

An hour must suffice for tears among the duties of 
life ; but time is kind, and each day adds a drop from 
Lethe to the bitter draught of pain. Fernando, ful- 
filling the mission of childhood, laughed, and played, 
and coaxed his mother to smile. 

" My father is going to bring me a bag-full of sea- 
shells," he said. " When I am a man I am going with 
him in his ship. Then you shall have everything you 
want, and dress as fine as the queen." 

Two weary months passed with a monotony which 
Beatriz accepted as the rule of her life henceforth. 
Expectation and hope were fixed on a future point so 
indefinite that it could not come within the horizon 
of the present. One morning she sat with her father 



142 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

and her brother Rodrigo in the hall, where some coals 
burned in a brazier ; for the air of early winter was 
chill. Teresa came running in with an agitated face 
and stammering tongue, and Beatriz clasped her hands 
together, waiting for the message with a mother's quick 
anxiety for her child. Had harm befliUen Fernando? 
But Teresa smiled, and held up a letter. 

" From Seiior Colon," she said. " A letter from him 
to you, Dona Beatriz." 

Beatriz grew pale, as she broke the seals with 
trembling fingers. Rodrigo concealed his uneasy 
impatience as best he could, and Fernando jumped 
up and down to manifest his joy at news from his 
father. 

" Read it, read it," cried Don Fernando. 

Beatriz could have wished to keep the words sacred 
for her own perusal ; but she yielded to the wish of 
the others, and read aloud : — 

To MY WELL-BELOVED WiFE, — I write in an upper 
room of the convent of La Rabida, where I have spent 
happy weeks of spiritual exercise, aided by the fervor of 
the worthy brothers here who live in the sanctity of the 
Lord. My Diego received me with respect and affection 
Thou wilt liave no trouble with his education. The good 
friar, Juan Perez de Marchena, has bestowed great pains 
upon him, and he is imbued with the gentle and holy spirit 
which the blessing of Our Lady gives to the dwellers here 
who guard her image which she miraculously revealed to 
them — 

" What is this? " interrupted Rodrigo, with a frown. 
" Monkish tales when we look for tidings." 

" Be patient," said Beatriz. " There is more to 
come." 



A VOW TO LOVE. 143 

My hand trembles as I write. I know not how to ex- 
press myself to thee. If I were with thee, I could tell of 
divine leadings and outward urgings which have changed 
my purposes ; but, briefly, it is this : I no longer mean to sail 
for France. I start, at break of day, for Santa Fe, whither 
the queen has summoned me by a letter written in her own 
hand. She has pledged her royal word to listen to me 
favorably. The end will be as the Lord wills. Give 
paternal greetings to my dear Fernando, and good 
wishes to thy father and brothers. The Virgin's bless- 
ing remain with thee. 

By my own hand, at the convent of Our Lady of La 
Rabida. 

Cristoval Colon. 

Rodrigo struck the table with his fist. " Folly and 
madness ! " he exlaimed. 

Beatriz smiled with delight, without heeding him. 

" I may see him again," she said to herself. 

Fernando, reflecting her looks, burst into joyous 
exclamations. 

** What is it? Where is he going? I do not under- 
stand the letter," said Enriquez. 

Rodrigo leaned back in his chair and laughed 
scornfully. 

" He still pursues a madman's whim," he said. 
" It is as all declare : his mind is not right." 

Beatriz looked at her brother, with flashing eyes. 

"Thou knowest it to be a falsehood," she ex- 
claimed. " Thy anger, Rodrigo, hath made thee forget 
the courtesy thou dost show to all besides my husband. 
He is the best judge of his own course. I beg thee 
never to speak ill of him again before his child." 
Then, turning to her father, she re-read the last part 
of the letter, and added : " He goes to the camp 



144 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

before Granada. The city will soon surrender, it 
is said. The queen has promised to hear him, and 
she was never known to foil in her word. Thus all 
promises well. At last he will succeed." 

Rodrigo rose with a sigh and an expressive ges- 
ture. " Some day thou wilt see the justice of my 
opinion," he said, as he took leave. 



CHAPTER XV. 

THE TRIUMPH OF THE CROSS. 

THE influence of the weeks passed at La Rabida ^ 
in a fever of suspense and newly awakened 
hope amid the regular life and peaceful seclusion of 
a religious community, was potent to affect Colon's 
intense nature at this crisis of his life. Friar Perez 
had urged him to reconsider his decision of leaving 
Spain, and to await the result of one last effort for a 
hearing with the gentle queen, who had never yet 
been personally solicited in his favor. Perez, having 
been at one time her confessor, still had her confi- 

1 This visit of Colon to the convent of La Rabida has often 
been described ; but the story is related with singular discrep- 
ancies, as is the case with every detail of this portion of his his- 
tory. The same is true of the account of Granada's foil. Each 
chronicler seems to follow his own judgment, without consulting 
the records of others. Irving and Prescott disagree no less than 
De Lorgues, Tarducci, and the various minor writers, who fol- 
low most often in the footsteps of Irving. The writer of fiction 
is not burdened with proof of historical sequence ; but that 
six years intervened between Colon's first visit and the one 
we are concerned with, seems by all means most probable. 
It was not as a needy wayfarer, begging bread for his son 
Diego, that he came to La Rabida on his way to France. The 
young Diego had been left to be educated at this convent, and 
was, shortly after this time, sent to Cordova to be given into 
the maternal care of Beatriz Enriquez. 

10 



146 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

dence and access to her attention. He appealed so 
earnestly, by letter and in person, for his friend the 
Genoese, that Isabella granted his request, and or- 
dered Colon to appear before her at Granada, while, 
as usual, a sum of money was sent him to defray the 
expenses of his attendance at court. 

It was at La Rabida, while awaiting the queen's 
reply, that Colon for the first time became deeply 
imbued with the spirit of the monastic life. The 
convent of Franciscans of which Juan Perez was 
guardian had preserved in their far-away corner of 
Andalusia the pure enthusiasm of the early converts 
to the rule of Saint Francis. Mingling freely with the 
people of the busy ports of Palos and Moguer, they 
were beloved and respected by all. Their rule of ab- 
solute poverty had been in more than two centuries 
somewhat relaxed. They owned their lands and vine- 
yards, and needed not to solicit alms, for free gifts 
poured in upon them. Their possession of a miracu- 
lous image of the Virgin made their chapel a goal of 
pilgrimage, and once a year the scene of a religious 
festival for the whole of the neighboring country, when 
the image was carried in a grand procession, dispensing 
a blessing to the participants which the dwellers on the 
most distant hacienda would not willingly forego. 

Colon, dressed in the garb of the Third Order of 
Saint Francis, with a girdle of knotted rope, and bare, 
sandalled feet, took his place among the brothers, and 
threw himself with enthusiasm into the routine of their 
daily work and worship. While Juan Perez was plead- 
ing his cause at Santa F6, he was absorbed in studying 
the lives of Saint Francis and Saint Benedict, and in 
keeping fasts and vigils in imitation of the heroes of 



THE TRIUMPH OF THE CROSS. 147 

the fliith. The queen's letter calHng him to Santa F4 
announced Juan Perez's triumph ; but it was with 
some regret that Colon prepared to obey the sum- 
mons. Once more he must encounter the delays of 
royal favor, and the ridicule of courtiers, whose jests 
at his expense gained in potency with age. He half 
regretted yielding to Juan Perez's persuasions, and 
thus giving up the dignity of his position as a silent 
accuser of Si)ain's perfidious monarch to assume once 
more that of a needy suppliant for his assistance. 

The journey was a tedious and difficult one. The 
country he passed through showed everywhere traces 
of the ravages of war. Orchards were burned ; vil- 
lages were in ruins. The triumph of the Spaniards 
and the dejection of the Moors were vividly con- 
trasted as each day's progress brought him nearer 
Granada, — the pomegranate so ruthlessly plucked by 
the hand of the conqueror. 

At the last stage of his journey, in a small village 
where he stopped for the night, Juan Perez met 
Colon with news of the surrender, and the following 
day they journeyed on together. It was a morning 
of brilliant sunshine. The pure, cold air of the up- 
lands was exhilarating ; and the triumph of the Cross 
swelled the hearts of both with gladness. The snowy 
crest of the Sierra Nevada shone in splendor in the 
sunlight ; while numerous streams leaped and flashed 
from its sides on their way to join the waters of the 
Darro. The purple mist still hung in the valleys. 

At the summit of a rocky pass a party of fugitives 
met and passed them, so remarkable in their appear- 
ance that both men paused and watched them curi- 
ously. Several Moorish women, shrouded in veils, 



148 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

rode on white palfreys, while before them a train of 
sumpter mules was driven by turbaned slaves. The 
animals were loaded with precious stuffs, — gold and 
silver vessels, caskets and carpets, — as if they be- 
longed to a Damascus caravan. At either end of the 
slow procession rode a small guard of Moorish vete- 
rans, with scarred faces and flashing eyes, — the he- 
roes of many a battle, who were now reduced to guard 
the flight of their king's household riding as exiles 
from their palace home. 

The women wailed and wrung their hands like 
funeral mourners. At every turn of the path they 
looked behind, and every glimpse of the receding 
view caused a fresh burst of grief. One tall woman 
who rode ahead of the rest alone preserved a digni- 
fied imperturbability. She pushed back her veil, and 
gazed across the valley with tearless eyes ; then she 
turned with scornful looks and voluble reproaches to 
the others, and shaking her horse's jingling bridle, rode 
on again in silence. 

They passed and were hidden behind the project- 
ing buttresses of rocks ; the sound of their wailing 
voices and the measured tramp of hoofs was borne 
faintly by the wind, until the depths of the wilderness 
enclosed them. 

" By Our Lady, it is the household of Boabdil flee- 
ing from Granada ! " said Perez. " Let us hasten, 
that we may witness the surrender. Praise to God, 
the victory is achieved ! The infidel is cast down 
from his throne, the ungodly is despoiled of his in- 
heritance, and the righteous enter into the city ! " 

The vega of Granada was full of the stir of troops 
defiling to their different positions in the advance. 



THE TRIUMPH OF THE CROSS. 149 

The king and queen, leaving Santa F^, took the road 
across the meadows of the Xenil, surrounded by their 
household attendants, the royal guards, and a train of 
monks and friars of various orders. Perez and Colon 
joined themselves to the Franciscans, among whom 
Francisco Ximenes was conspicuous ; and at his invi- 
tation they followed him to a post near De Talavera, 
who bore in his own hands the magnificent silver cross 
which was to lead the advance and signalize the occu- 
pancy of the city. With him they joined Mendoza's 
splendidly accoutred soldiery, and climbed the steep 
and winding path outside the city walls, where Boab- 
dil and his fifty cavaliers came clattering down, after 
delivering the keys of the fortress to the Count de 
Tendilla, turning their backs upon the palace they had 
lost at the moment that the silver cross shone from 
its topmost tower. 

As the sunlight struck this splendid symbol of their 
faith and triumph, the Spanish sovereigns fell upon 
their knees, and the whole victorious army followed 
their example. The Te Deum — that grandest Chris- 
tian hymn — burst from a thousand throats. Colon, 
who stood with De Talavera and the others upon the 
great watch-tower of the Alhambra beside the dazzling 
cross, looked with delight upon the view beneath and 
around him, — the snow-capped mountains, the neigh- 
boring heights crowned with towers and palaces, the 
turrets and domes of the city rising at the base of the 
hill, the sparkling rivers in the valley, and the deep 
blue sky of Andalusia over all. 

The palace of the Alhambra nestled like a gem in 
the centre of the line of fortifications, upon the hill 
overlooking the city. Unspoiled as yet except by its 



150 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

exiled inmates, who had carried off what treasures 
they could, unshattered by war or earthquake, it de- 
served its reputation for matchless beauty. When, 
four days later, the sovereigns entered and took pos- 
session, the Te Deum was chanted under the arches 
of the great Hall of Justice. The censers in which 
perfumes had been burned for the enjoyment of the 
dainty and luxurious Moors, were taken from their 
niches and dedicated for use in the Christian service 
of thanksgiving. The palace was sprinkled with holy 
water. The exquisite delicacy of this structure, the 
flower of Moorish architecture, representing the high- 
est point of an over-refined and declining civilization, 
did not atone for the profanity of the sentences of the 
Koran wrought with the arabesques upon the walls, 
nor for the voluptuous appeal to the senses, which 
made its perfumed chambers, its baths and fountains, 
seem to the severe asceticism of the Spanish priests 
things of evil. 

Colon shared their ideas. Self-denial, for its own 
sake, had been impressed upon him by his studies at 
La Rabida, as the highest good, — an end rather than 
a means. The exultation of triumph that animated 
the court and army was intensified, in his case, by 
delight at the approaching completion of his hopes ; 
but in contrast to this, the inner voice of monastic 
discipline seemed to say, "Trust not in princes; 
rejoice not in earthly hopes." 



o 



CHAPTER XVI. 

TWO VOICES. 

NE more disappointment awaited Colon, when, 
as every one knows, the negotiation with the 
sovereigns was broken off as it appeared to be pro- 
gressing to a favorable conclusion. The needy Italian 
had the audacity to treat on princely terms, and to 
require a princely reward. He was dismissed, only 
to be recalled at the last moment, when Isabella, 
yielding to her generous impulses, undertook the en- 
terprise for her own kingdom of Castile, offering, if 
necessary, to pledge the crown jewels for its expenses. 
These cruel alternations of hope and despair could 
not fail to leave a visible effect upon a sensitive na- 
ture. Colon returning at the queen's command from 
the bridge of Pinos, was not the same man who had 
followed in her train to the siege of Malaga. Even 
the moment of triumph lacked something of its com- 
pleteness from having been so long delayed. The 
buoyancy of youth was gone, as was youth's keen 
delight in achievement. 

When Colon returned to Cordova, on his way to 
Palos, a joyful family circle welcomed him. The dig- 
nity of success is equal to that of inherited rank. 
Since Senor Colon was appointed by royal patent 
Admiral of the ocean, and Viceroy of the lands he 
was to discover, all things connected with him rose in 



152 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

value. Friends were found who had hitherto nour- 
ished in secret an unfaltering belief in his future 
which they hastened now to manifest by acts of cour- 
tesy to his family. Rodrigo forgot that he had ac- 
cused him of mad delusion, and Antonia became the 
affectionate sister which, as she assured Beatriz, she 
had always longed to prove herself. Diego, Rodrigo's 
young brother, who lived as an adopted son in his 
house, and young Juan, Rodrigo's son, reminded 
Beatriz that Colon had long ago promised them a 
command in his fleet. Old Don Fernando looked 
forward to the immediate possession of boundless 
wealth. *' When my son-in-law returns from the 
Indies " was his preface to every plan for the future. 

The welcome that Colon received on the farewell 
visit he made to his home was therefore proportional 
to the genial atmosphere that reigned there. Popu- 
larity is sweet, and sympathetic friendship is a con- 
solation for long neglect. Colon accepted his new 
place as hero with the simplicity of a nature inde- 
pendent of praise but rejoicing in it. His wife was 
unchanged. Her tenderness was unfailing, and her 
proud affection sacrificed her sorrow at parting upon 
the altar of his triumph. She took the brief hours of 
his presence, interrupted as they were with business 
and the ofificiousness of friends, as a boon from 
Heaven, given in answer to her prayers. The fare- 
well moment, when it came again, was not so hard to 
bear. 

Diego and Juan accompanied Colon, and their 
youthful ardor of expectation raised the hopes of all. 
A large escort rode with them as far as Seville. Sup- 
plies were everywhere furnished to them by the 



TIVO VOICES. 153 

queen's command. The alcalde of every village 
welcomed them as persons of importance. Gaping 
peasants came to stare along the roadsides, and crowds 
filled the church of San Julian in Seville, where Mass 
was celebrated upon their arrival. 

Colon knelt once more before the picture of San 
Cristoval. It was a keen delight to his fervent mind 
to trace out the first fulfilment of a prophecy con- 
cerning himself. To his overwrought fancy the lips 
of the saint seemed to move, and the halo about the 
head of the Christ-child to expand and scintillate. 

When he was once more a guest at La Rabida, 
there was no time for religious meditation, unless it 
were taken from the hours of sleep. Midnight often 
found him kneeling in the chapel, but the days were 
full of anxious care. The queen's command to fur- 
nish the Genoese with ships and men for his purpose 
was received in the little village of Palos with a tumult 
of half-open rebellion. The sturdy sailors of that 
seaport were ready enough for ordinary service, — a 
cruise against the Turks, or a descent upon the Afri- 
can coast ; but the best of them refused to risk life 
and limb to follow a stranger across the boiling waters 
of the torrid zone, and the impenetrable darkness 
that shrouded the abysses of a sea full of monsters 
and whirling waterspouts, through which, if a man 
could live to make his way onward, he could never 
return, for he would be engulfed in the precipitous 
fall of waters where the ocean itself ceased and was 
swallowed up. 

Friar Perez preached to the villagers, and argued 
for his friend. Colon was unceasing in his efforts 
at persuasion. The officers of the queen, when ap- 



154 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

pealed to, invoked the thunders of their sovereign's 
wrath ; but all was for a time in vain. 

''This delay is meant to discipline thy soul," said 
Perez to his friend, as he joined him, late one even- 
ing, upon the convent roof, where Colon was pacing 
up and down, with his eyes fixed upon the sea. 
" Embrace the trial, and good will come to 
thee." 

" You are right," answered Colon, humbly. " It 
is sent, no doubt, as punishment for some motive of 
pride or some unrecognized sin within me." 

Perez hesitated before he said : " When at Granada 
I met the worthy Ximenes, a man of exalted mind, 
who spoke with me concerning thee. He would not 
address thee again, he said ; but when he cast his eyes 
upon thee his bowels yearned for thee as Joseph's for 
his brother Benjamin, and he longed to snatch thee 
as a brand from the fire. ' One thing thy friend 
lacks,' said he : 'it is not wealth that he refuses to 
the Lord ; but having a beautiful wife, the love of her 
has ensnared his soul.' " 

Colon flushed, while he frowned slightly. " Do 
you also, Friar Perez, regard as sinful the purest love 
of the human heart? " he asked. 

The prior spread his hands deprecatingly, and 
shook his head. " Where one may eat with a good 
conscience, another may offend in his meat," he said. 
" I cannot judge for thee. Thou hast confessed thy- 
self to me. I know thy heart. Thou art absolved 
from thy sins, which at the most are venial. But it 
may be, as Ximenes urges, that the Lord has chosen 
thee as a special vessel, and that he calls thee to a 
special sacrifice. Inquire of the Lord, not of me. I 



TWO VOICES. 155 

Speak not, like Ximenes, with authority. I am not, 
like him, a power in the Church." 

Colon, when left alone, hurried to the chapel, and 
flung himself upon his knees before the shrine which 
enclosed the miraculous image of the Virgin. Here, 
if anywhere, he should be able to perceive the truth. 
As the time for the realization of his life-long hopes 
approached, a trifling delay was harder to bear than 
years of suspense hitherto. No sacrifice seemed too 
great when weighed in the balance with this ambi- 
tion, which was entwined with every thought and 
fibre of his being, to relinquish which would be to 
give up life itself. What was the will of God ? Had 
he for years been raising obstacles in his own path ? 
Was Ximenes an inspired messenger of Heaven, or 
did he speak from his own strong prepossessions, 
without authority to bind or loose? 

No answer came, though Colon prayed long and 
fervently, trying to empty his nature of self-will, and 
to listen for the voice of God. He rose, feeling the 
despair of one who is an outcast from grace, unwor- 
thy to receive a divine intimation. The agony of 
this thought to a mind devout by nature and by the 
training of circumstances was supreme. Colon lay 
sleepless and miserable upon his pallet in the upper 
chamber reserved for his use. 

At last there came to him a sudden memory of the 
vow which he had taken kneeling with Beatriz beside 
Fernando's couch. He felt again in fancy the warm 
touch of her hand, and calm fell upon his mind. 

" My path is chosen for good or ill," he said to 
himself. " A vow taken before God cannot be 
broken." 



156 COLUMBUS AND BEATKIZ. 

Once more he was a man of courage and resolu- 
tion, capable of bearing delay and opposition, and of 
repressing tumult and mutiny by the sheer power of 
manly strength. 

" Selfish impatience, not unrepented sin, has made 
me weak," he thought, recalling with quick compunc- 
tion the depth of Beatriz's love and confidence in 
him. " A simple woman, taught by pure affection, is 
sometimes wiser than the doctors of the Church." 



M 



CHAPTER XVII. 

THE PATH OF DUTY. 

"ANY a sailor's wife wept in Palos when the little 
fleet of three vessels weighed anchor, crossed 
the bar, and set sail for the unknown sea; and 
IJeatriz spent night after night of sleepless anxiety 
waiting for an assurance that the long-expected hour 
had come, and that her husband was gone on a voy- 
age from which he might never return. 

No letter came ; but one day a sandalled friar and 
a tall, sturdy youth reached the house in the Court of 
Pomegranates with recommendations from Senor Don 
Colon, the Admiral, to Dona Pcatriz Enrifiuez Colon. 
"Art thou Diego?" asked Beatriz, taking the boy's 
reluctant hand, while Fernando hung back, shyly mak- 
ing a critical survey of the new-comer from a distance. 
" I am thy mother now. Wilt thou love me? " 

Diego met her look. " You are only a girl," he 
said. Then he turned away and hung his head, as if 
conscious that he had been rude, and regretting it. 

" She is the best mother in the world ! " cried Fer- 
nando, running forward. " She can play ball as well 
as a boy. Can you shoot with a cross-bow? " 
Diego made no answer. 

" He is tired and hungry," said Beatriz. " Take 
him to Teresa, and ask her to give him his dinner." 



158 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

As Diego passed her, Beatriz laid her arm for a 
moment caressingly about his neck. Diego blushed 
crimson. Then he took her hand in both of his, and 
stooped and pressed a kiss upon it. Friar Martin 
Sanchez watched him in surprise as he left the room, 
conducted gayly by Fernando. 

"■ The lad is gentle and courtly in his ways," he 
said. " I never knew him to be short of speech one 
moment and over forward the next." 

" He pleases me," said Beatriz. " He has a nature 
like his father's ; I shall love him well." 

Beatriz found pleasure in lavishing affection upon 
the Admiral's son who had received his last greeting, 
and in overwhelming with courtesies the friar who had 
the latest tidings to give concerning his voyage. 

As they sat about the table for the mid-day meal, 
the whole household hung breathless on the words 
of Friar Sanchez, who told with deliberation, in the 
pauses of his eating, the story of the long-delayed 
equipment, and the sailing of the fleet. Beatriz grew 
red and white by turns. Tears filled her eyes ; and 
she drew Fernando to her side, where he stayed to 
listen, leaning on her knee. The good friar had no 
perception of sentiment or romance. He abated 
nothing of the hardships, discouragements, and prob- 
able dangers of the undertaking. Like his brothers 
of the convent, he was convinced that Cristoval Colon 
was correct in his opinions concerning the shape and 
size of the earth ; but Friar Martin had his own opin- 
ion as to the folly of being the first to venture where 
man had never sailed before. The opposition felt 
throughout the district to the proposed expedition, 
and the necessity of impressing ships and men by 



THE PATH OF DUTY. 159 

force for the service, had weakened the confidence 
of many who had always been friendly to the 
undertaking. 

" It were well for you to resign yourself to the 
worst, Senora," said Friar Martin, folding his hands 
in the contentment succeeding a good meal. " Should 
he live to return, well and good ; if not, you have 
two fine boys here who will be famous men some 
day, no doubt, since, as Don Colon told me, the 
queen has promised to take them both, when they 
are older, into her service as pages to the young 
Prince Juan." 

*' Did he tell you that?" asked Beatriz, in a tone 
of agonized apprehension, drawing Fernando closer 
to her side. 

" He spoke of the promise her Highness had made 
him, as another token of her wish to please and honor 
him," answered Friar Sanchez, deliberately. 

" My Fernando shall never leave me," exclaimed 
Beatriz. 

"No, I will not," said the child, beginning to 
cry. 

"There, there, what folly is this?" cried Don 
Enriquez, petulantly. " Few honors and emoluments 
have come to our house of late. At the rumor of one 
thou dost start and fret as at some new misfortune. 
Bring up thy son to be a man, not a whining 
coward." 

" Heaven help me," exclaimed Beatriz, " if I must 
part from my child ! " 

" No, no," cried Teresa, sympathetically. " Since we 
have not heard it, it is not true. Moreover, in two 
years he will still be too young to be a page, and Don 



l6o COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

Diego would not be sent to you if the queen were very 
shortly to require him." 

Beatriz tried to smile, and to forget the threatened 
evil. She determined to live in the present, and to 
be happy for the sake of Fernando, who reflected her 
moods with the fond sensitiveness of an only child. 
She encouraged games with Diego which left her out, 
already beginning by choice that course of self-immo- 
lation through which every mother passes sooner or 
later. 

** If Fernando must leave me," she thought, shud- 
dering, " he must not love me too well, for love is 
torment." 

She worked unceasingly, trying to crowd the days 
too full to leave time for thought. When she was not 
occupied in directing the boys' studies, she was sew- 
ing for them, or contriving unexpected pleasures as a 
reward for good behavior. Teresa's jealousy of the 
little monk, as she called Diego, failed to introduce 
an element of discord into the family, for the two 
boys became devoted to each other. Diego had an 
elder brother's gende consideration for the younger, 
and Fernando profited by it to extend his youthful 
tyranny over a new subject. Beatriz held the scales 
of justice between them with an impartial hand, in- 
clining to Diego rather than to her own son if a 
controversy arose ; but in the end Diego's generosity 
was always in excess of hers. 

"Thou art a comfort to me, Diego," she said one 
day to the boy, with the beaming smile he valued as 
his best reward. "Thou dost remind me of my 
dear brother Pedro, whom I now so seldom see, when 
we were young together. Those were happy days." 



THE PATH OF DUTY. i6i 

"You are not happy now," said Diego, quietly, 
looking at her with the serious expression which he 

often wore. 

" Oh, yes, very happy," said Beatriz, with a smile, 
« but I am too old to be gay as I used to be. Thou 
must enjoy thy youth, my dear Diego, and laugh and 
play while thou canst. Do not sit here with me and 
look so full of care." 

"You work too hard," said Diego, with conviction, 
" and you are uneasy about my father." 

Beatriz took the boy's hand, and pressed it with 
hers against her side. 

"Dost thou feel how my heart beats when thou 
dost mention his name?" she said. 
" You will be ill," said Diego. 
"So he returns unharmed, I shall be well," she 
answered. "At night I have fearful dreams about 
him. But yonder goes a man with a cart-full of 
oranges. Run and choose me a basket of fine 

ones." 

Diego did her bidding mechanically, musing all 
the time upon a problem which was too difficult for 
him to solve. 

" What is the little monk thinking about? " asked 
Teresa, when he carried the oranges to her in the 
store-room. 

" About my step-mother," he answered frankly. 

"And what of her? " 

"That I would gladly die if it would make her 
happy," replied Diego. 

When Beatriz heard this answer from Teresa, she 
held council with herself how she could avoid impress- 
ing her own intensity of feeling upon the children, 
II 



1 62 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ, 

whose lives she wished to brighten, not to cloud. As 
a result of hours of meditation, she sent for Rodrigo. 
When he came, she said, — 

*' I have been thinking, my brother, that the quiet 
life which suits me well, and which my father loves, is 
not good for Fernando and Diego, who are, as we 
have heard, to be received some day into the queen's 
household. They love me so well that such a change, 
if sudden, would cause them much pain. I propose 
therefore to accept for a time the offer thou madest 
me long ago, and to leave our house here empty until 
my husband's return, living meantime with thee, if it 
pleases thee and Antonia to receive us." 

" Thou wilt be more than welcome," said Rodrigo, 
in a tone of triumph. " Antonia mourns for our son 
and for our brother Diego. She will be glad to have 
the children to divert her." 

The decision which it cost Beatriz so much to make 
was carried out. Don Fernando had grown too child- 
ish to give much heed to his surroundings. Teresa 
was glad to be in a great house, where there was always 
plenty to eat and to drink ; and the children were happy 
in a larger playground and finer rooms, since their 
mother was still with them. Beatriz alone regretted 
the home of her youth. In the midst of a gay com- 
pany in Rodrigo's grand saloon, she would sit silent 
and abstracted, seeing in fancy the little tinkling foun- 
tain in the patio ^ and the deserted bench under the 
pomegranate-tree. 

Her beauty, which was more striking than ever in 
its ripe perfection, made her the centre of observa- 
tion in every circle. Her husband's new position 
attracted new deference of attention, and his adven- 



THE PATH OF DUTY. 163 

tiiroiis enterprise was discussed from every point of 
view. This subject alone could win Beatriz's undi- 
vided attention. Her eyes would kindle with pleas- 
ure at a word of praise for him, and her most grateful 
glances were the reward of the speaker who espoused 
his cause. 

<* To win a smile from the wife of Don Colon, — one 
must give him a title now, — it is necessary to com- 
pliment her husband," said a young noble, discontent- 
edly, in his neighbor's ear. " Speak of her beauty 
and she frowns like an angry Juno. Compare this 
visionary, who has sailed away to attempt the impos- 
sible, .to ^neas or Ulysses, and she will melt into 
tenderness; but it is all for him." 

One evening Antonio Geraldini seated himself be- 
side her as if he had news to communicate. Beatriz 
never saw this man, who when in Cordova was a fre- 
quent visitor at Rodrigo's house, without fearing that 
a message had been sent through him concerning Fer- 
nando. Geraldini was instructor to the young princess, 
and Beatriz had had many serious conversations with 
him concerning her son's future. Geraldini was un- 
wearied in his praises of the gentle queen, the piety 
and order of her household, and the sense and no- 
bility of her views concerning the education of her 
children and those who were brought up with 
them as attendants and companions. But this 
evening Antonio did not begin as usual. He asked 
abruptly, " When did you last see Don Garcia de 
Silva, Senora?" 

Beatriz blushed. 

" It is long since I have seen him," she answered ; 
"■ but I have heard that he has taken the vows of a 



1 64 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

Dominican, and means to study for the priesthood. Is 
it true?" 

" What he will do in the future I know not," said 
Geraldini. " He is in the last month of his novitiate ; 
but he tells me that to go further will be impossible 
until he has spoken with you." 

"With me? " exclaimed Beatriz. *' Wherefore? " 

" I know not," said Geraldini ; " but I carried the 
message, since I pity him. His is a promising life 
wasted like a riv^er that has lost itself in the sand. One 
by one his ambitions have failed him. He has no vo- 
cation for a religious life, I fear ; but he has grasped at 
it as the last road to power or to peace, whichever it 
may be. He asks to see you alone in the cathedral 
gardens after matins to-morrow." 

Since the worthy Geraldini acted as his messenger, 
Beatriz could not refuse Don Garcia's request, which 
was thus urged upon her as a duty. Early in the morn- 
ing she took Fernando with her to the cathedral ser- 
vice ; and afterwards entered the garden, where a black- 
and-white-robed friar was waiting beneath the trees. 

Garcia strode to meet Beatriz with an eager scrutiny 
of her face. Fernando, frightened by the cowl and 
mantle, clung to his mother's hand and scanned him 
critically. 

" I do not like that man," he said. 

"Run and play by the fountain a moment, my 
love," said Beatriz, noticing the cloud on Garcia's face. 
"What will you with me?" she added, returning 
Garcia's greeting with dignity. 

" Have I but a moment to tell you what my heart is 
bursting with? " said Garcia. " I tried to forget you. 
I chose to marry another, to satisfy my ambition and 



THE PATH OF DUTY. 165 

bid fixrewell to the past. Your husband interfered like 
an evil genius, and made my future a blank. I then 
embraced a soldier's death in the heat of conflict at 
the head of a victorious assault. Cristoval Colon gave 
me back the life which he had made of no value. One 
path of power remains. As a Dominican I may in 
time become a familiar of the Holy Oflice. Princes 
may tremble at my decision. Already I have kindled 
at Valladolid the fagots of an auto da fi, and watched 
a heretic shrivel in the flames." 

Beatriz shuddered. 

" I returned to Cordova for a brief visit to my de- 
serted home," continued Garcia, " and I saw you. You 
did not recognize the cowled friar ; but at the sight of 
your flice the dark and evil present passed like a cloud, 
and once more I was the youth who loved you. Bid 
me decide. Am I to follow the path that leads through 
fires of vindictive passion — enjoying nothing, hating 
my very existence — only to gain the power to wreak 
vengeance and to destroy life ; or am I to live for 
your friendship, hoping in the future for a dearer tie? " 

" You rave," said Beatriz. '^ What can be your 
meaning? " 

" Should your husband never return — " began 
Garcia. 

" I should pass my widowed existence mourning for 
him," said Beatriz. " I scorn you, but I pity you, 
Don Garcia. You are beside yourself to speak thus. 
Surely you have some good purpose in taking the vows 
of an order containing many holy men." 

Garcia laughed scornfully. 

" You do not see the hidden baseness of these holy 
lives," he answered. 



l66 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

" I have heard the noble Ximenes preach in this 
very cathedral," said Beatriz, " concerning the need 
of a reformation in the monasteries. Yet good will 
attract good. We see in others what we find in our 
own hearts. You would not make a vow before God 
with a lie in your right hand." 

" You would shrink from gazing at the depths of 
evil into which I shall plunge when I take that vow," 
said Garcia. " The punishment of the hypocrite 
may be mine hereafter; but life owes me revenge 
if not success. You alone can save me from this 
course." 

" How is it possible? " said Beatriz. 

**Give me a hope that one day in a future when 
thou art once more free to choose, thy thoughts may 
turn with affection to the one man who has truly loved 
thee." 

" Say no more ! " commanded Beatriz. " Come, 
Fernando, we will go." 

*' Nay, hear me," urged Garcia; " I have no will to 
offend thee. Thou canst not now foresee the future 
of thy wishes ; but I will forsake my evil purposes, will 
live for thy sake a humble life in the world, working as 
a cobbler on a bench if need be, so thou wilt tell me 
thou couldst love me were Cristoval Colon lost in 
the sea." 

" Surely you are mad, Don Garcia," exclaimed 
Beatriz, haughtily. " I have listened with patience, 
hoping to divert you by my counsel from an evil choice, 
since there is no greater sin than to make a religious 
profession from an unholy motive. But you abuse my 
kindness. How is it possible that you can so misjudge 
me ? Have I since my husband's departure encour- 



THE PATH OF DUTY. 1 67 

aged in any the belief that I love him less than with 
my whole heart and soul? " 

" Thou art as ever a goddess of perfection," an- 
swered Garcia. '' The world would not know if thy 
heart were breaking. I alone believed that time had 
opened thine eyes, that indifference and neglect had 
shown thee the truth of Ben Hamet's prediction, and 
that pride alone deterred thee from the avowal of thy 
disappointment." 

Beatriz blushed deeply as she said : " Must I avow 
then to you, who have no right to my confidence, that 
I love my husband better each day I live ; that were 
he capable of neglecting, even of injuring me, my 
constant affection would cling to him, for it is so rooted 
in my heart that death alone can end it? " 

She bent her head in a distant farewell, as she took 
Fernando's hand and hastened from the garden. Gar- 
cia flung himself upon a bench, and groaned, with his 
face hidden in his hands. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

THE STORM. 

'T^HE history of the great Admiral's first voyage has 
-■■ been often told by abler pens. Every child is 
familiar with its details ; and of all its varied fortunes 
only two periods of supreme importance concern this 
story, as they alone left an indelible impress upon the 
life of its hero. 

Who can measure the exultation and devout thanks- 
giving with which he first set foot upon the virgui shores 
of a new world ? The perfection of that moment was 
an ample atonement for the past. When the Arctic 
traveller stands triumphant at the long-sought Pole, 
with all its terrors vanquished, he will be able in a 
measure to enter into those emotions ; but with the 
sympathy of the civilized world for his motive and 
support, he can never know what it would be to 
achieve such a conquest single-handed and alone ; nor 
can any one repeat, in this age of restless self-analysis, 
the whole-hearted surrender of a life to a principle of 
action which is justified equally by scientific intuition 
and intense religious enthusiasm. 

Colon knelt under the banner of the Cross, and 
kissed the soil with tears of joy. He had gained 
one conquest ; he looked forward to another, when he 
should plant that banner within the walls of Jerusalem, 
and kiss the stones worn by pious feet before the 



THE STORM. 169 

Chapel of the Holy Sepulchre ! The joy he felt was 
that of angels who perfectly fulfil the divine will, 
mingled with the human leaven of self-justification, 
which is so sweet to wounded pride. He felt it to be 
only fitting that his repentant companions, who had 
to the last thwarted and contradicted him, should 
kneel and kiss his feet and the hem of his mantle. 
Yet he was gentle and humble, and ready to forgive. 

It was necessary for the rescue of the Sepulchre to 
have gold in abundant measure. Spain's avaricious 
monarch, too, must have the lion's share. It would 
not do to linger in a delightful climate, nor to at- 
tempt, as yet, to bring the gentle, simple-minded 
natives within the Christian fold. The sordid condi- 
tions of life required, even for the noblest purposes, 
this golden Mammon as their price. The rich cities 
of Manghay and Cathay must be found. Each inlet 
penetrating the coast might lead to them; each 
clump of dense, primeval forest might hide their 
ivory cupolas and glittering domes. Far from the 
simple natives of the unfrequented coast, there must 
be great seaports in whose harbors the strange-shaped 
vessels of the East lay at anchor to discharge their 
precious cargoes. Each breeze that came off the 
shore, laden with tropical fragrance, might bear the 
secret of the spice islands to the eager searchers for 
wealth in this unpromising wilderness, rich only in 
beauty. 

The vain quest lured them on. The Admiral with 
his lofty, disinterested ambition needed gold for its 
gratification ; and " Gold, Gold ! " became the sailors' 
cry. It would purchase the Holy Sepulchre, it would 
also gratify the basest passion. The return was de- 



170 COLUMBUS AND BEATRJZ. 

layed, that fruitless expeditions might be undertaken 
into the interior, with greed for a watchword. Dis- 
content and treachery were aroused. The kindly 
natives were despoiled of their ornaments, and by 
strenuous exertions enough precious metal was ob- 
tained to convince the king that another expedition 
would be desirable; but the great Khan remained 
remote and inaccessible, the rumors of his where- 
abouts proving as uncertain guides as will-of-the- 
wisps. 

At last, with one vessel shipwrecked, and his fleet, 
consisting only of two leaking caravels, the Admiral 
gave the order to return to Spain. The favoring 
breezes and sunny skies, which had seemed a provi- 
dential assistance to his outward voyage and subse- 
quent explorations, were exchanged for variable and 
uncertain winds. One evening the sun set in a dull 
red haze, clouds gathered quickly until the stars were 
obscured ; and the wind, which had blown in fitful 
puffs, increased momentarily to a gale. 

Juan de Arana, Rodrigo's son, approached the Ad- 
miral as he stood on the castle of the Niila looking 
anxiously forward. 

" I dreamed last night that my mother stood at my 
bedside and wept over me," said Juan. " I fear, 
Sefior, that we shall not weather this storm ; and if we 
fail to reach Spain, what a cruel fate will befall my 
uncle Diego and the men under his command who 
are left behind in the new country ! They will be 
forever lost and forgotten." 

" Fie upon thee, Juan ! " said Colon. " Thou hast 
been the bravest of the brave. Can a dream affright 
thee?" 



THE STORM. 17 1 

Juan looked about, as the Admiral did, upon the 
churning waves and lowering clouds. 

" I believe that it was sent as a warning," he said. 
" Do you think our leaking vessels can long withstand 
the force of seas like this? " 

" We are in the hands of the Lord," answered 
Colon ; " he will not fail us in the hour of need." 

As the storm increased in violence, others of the 
crew felt the apprehension that Juan expressed. The 
interpreter of the expedition, a converted Jew, sat on 
a pile of cushions in the corner of the small cabin, 
steadying himself as best he could from the irregular 
motions of the vessel, his swarthy face showing 
ghastly pale in the dim light 

" Our Indians and our parrots, our gold and our 
more precious selves, will all go to the bottom to- 
gether, it seems," he said. " It is a pity that a man 
like myself, who can speak eight languages with ease, 
should perish thus ignominiously, having served as 
interpreter only to a few naked chieftains whose jar- 
gon is that of monkeys. Had my name been in- 
scribed on brass tablets in the court of the Khan, to 
be remembered like that of Marco Polo, the Venetian, 
I should not so bitterly complain." 

"You speak like a fool, Luiz de Torrez," remarked 
a companion. " What good would a brass tablet do 
you, if you were food for fishes? A few feet of dry 
ground were worth more to us now than all the riches 
of the Khan." 

" As for fame," said the king's notary, " the notice 
of their Highnesses of Spain is of greater value than 
that of any heathen potentate. You may console 
yourself with that, good Hebrew." 



172 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

" But should we founder here in mid-ocean, who 
is to tell the tale to their Highnesses?" answered 
De Torrez. *' By the straining and the creaking of 
the ship's timbers, and the report the sailors make of 
the water's entrance at every seam, it will not be long 
before all that is left of the ' Nina ' is an eddy and 
a bubble on the surface of the sea. The * Pinta ' 
has left us, and, being the weaker, is no doubt lost 
ere this." 

*' A curse on our Admiral, who has brought us to 
this pass ! " muttered a sailor, as he paused breathless 
in his work, wiping the sweat and the salt spray from 
his forehead. " It is a tempting of Providence to sail 
where no man has ever sailed before. How do we 
know that the storm will ever cease? It may blow 
here always in great gales like this, as the east wind 
blew without shifting on our outward voyage." 

Colon's anxiety was equal to that of his com- 
panions ; but he assumed a cheerfulness that he did 
not feel. When the storm had raged in unabated 
violence for two days and nights, the stoutest hearts 
lost hope. The Admiral had been indomitable in 
courage. Every resource of ingenuity and skill had 
been exhausted to keep the frail vessel afloat ; but 
at last it seemed that only a miracle could preserve 
ship and crew. Colon's devotional nature sought 
refuge instinctively in prayer, and rough seamen 
prayed as they had never done before. Vows were 
offered to each patron saint, and a special act of 
devotion was promised by the sailor to whose lot 
it should fall to perform it. 

Hearing of this intention, and desiring to encour- 
age it, the Admiral called the crew about him, and 



THE STORM. 173 

himself cast the lot. Some beans were placed in a 
seaman's cap, one marked with a cross. 

" Whosoever shall draw the marked bean," said 
Colon, "shall undertake a pilgrimage to the shrine 
of the Virgin at Guadalupe, bearing as offering a 
candle of pure wax of five pounds' weight." 

The beans were shaken together. The Admiral 
himself made the first trial, and drew forth the 
marked bean. 

"Gladly do I accept it," said Colon. "It is 
by the favor of Heaven that I, your leader, am 
chosen, and a sure token that we shall survive the 
storm." 

He left them with these encouraging words; but 
they were words of hypocrisy, urged by the need 
of the situation. As Colon stood alone in the roar 
of the tempest, clasping the mast to steady himself 
against the rush of wind and water, an agonizing 
thought forced itself insistently upon him. "Thou 
art the man," said this inner voice. " Thou art the 
Jonah upon whom the lot has fallen, and for whose 
sins this evil has come upon all." 

The frail and leaking vessel beneath his feet was 
alone in the turbulent ocean. The " Pinta " had 
been parted from its companion, and was no doubt 
lost with all on board. Of what avail were the toil 
and perseverance of years, the glory and complete- 
ness of his triumph, if all knowledge of his discovery 
should be swallowed up in the envious sea? Why 
was the cup of joy so soon to be dashed from his 
lips? 

" Thou hast tried, like Jonah," went on the inner 
voice, " to flee from the presence of the Lord. Great 



174 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

was thy ambition ; but thy faith and self-sacrifice 
were less than that of the least of the saints." 

Worn out with fatigue, anxiety, and the loss of 
sleep, drenched with the waves, and suffering agonies 
from the gout. Colon was too weary in mind and 
body to defend himself against the reproaches of 
conscience, or to distinguish them from fantastic 
blendings of memory and an over-excited imagina- 
tion. The warning of Ximenes de Cisneros, his read- 
ings in the quiet library of La Rabida, his scruples 
of conscience excited by Juan Perez's admonition, — 
all had left a deep impression upon his mind ; and 
at the critical moment forgotten feelings started forth 
with fresh power of conviction. He returned to the 
cabin, and was met by Juan de Arana. 

''The sailors have drawn the lots again," he said. 
" This time it falls to Pedro de Villa to undertake 
a pilgrimage to Our Lady of Ivoretto." 

" It is a long road to go," said Pedro, reluctantly. 
" I am a poor man with a family, — if I ever live to 
reach them." 

" I will willingly pay the costs for thee, Pedro," 
said Colon. " If the Blessed Virgin will pity us, we 
will honor her by every means in our power." 

" Let me take a turn at the beans," said a stalwart 
sailor. " If the lot falls on me, I will promise a pil- 
grimage to the convent of Santa Clara de Moguer, 
and I will watch all night there in the chapel." 

Pedro shook the cap, and held it toward the would- 
be devotee. He drew an unmarked bean, and turned 
it over in his hand with an air of unmistakable relief. 

"The chapel is a lonesome place, and worse at 
night," he said ; " but in such a time as this there 's 



THE STORM. 175 

naught I 'd refuse to please Our Lady, if so be she 
will show us favor." 

Each man drew a bean till the turn came to Colon, 
and he again drew the bean marked with a cross. 

All exclaimed in surprise. Colon felt a sudden 
pang ; but he smiled and said, " It is I who will 
watch all night in the convent of Santa Clara, imme- 
diately upon our safe arrival at Palos. Can you 
doubt that Heaven hears our prayers ? Since I must 
live to pay my vows, you, my companions, are as- 
sured of safety through my consecration to do this 
penance." 

" It looks to me as if we were sure of naught save 
of going to the bottom," said a sailor. '' Do not 
depend too much on the Admiral's reaching shore, 
men ; but let us all vow to go together, barefoot and 
in our shirts, to the first church we find on landing, 
carrying each one a candle, and giving thanks to the 
Virgin. So shall our Lady be more likely to look 
to saving each one of us, than if we left all for an- 
other to do for us." 

This suggestion was received with unanimous ap- 
probation, and the vow was taken by all on board. 
These religious exercises being concluded, the men 
were satisfied that everything possible was done which 
could assure their safety, and they waited in sullen 
resignation the moment of death or the prospect 
of relief. Colon had been much impressed by the 
drawing of the second lot. He doubted not that his 
end was near; and while he preserved the appear- 
ance of cheerfulness, he made preparations for death 
with characteristic vigor of action. He shut himself 
up alone in his cabin, and hastily wrote an account 



176 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

of his voyage to San Salvador, his discovery of the 
Indies, and the events that had occurred up to the 
time of writing. Directing this document to their 
Highnesses of Spain by the hand of the finder, who 
was promised a reward of a thousand ducats for bear- 
ing it safely to its destination, he enclosed it in a 
waxed cloth and placed it in a cask, which he threw 
overboard ; thus committing to the waves what might 
be the only tidings of his great achievement. 

Then he continued his usual diary of every day's 
events, in a more leisurely vein of reflection ; writing 
with a double consciousness of what it became him, 
in his character of the successful Admiral, to assume 
of courage and hope, and with the inner, unexpressed 
torment of warring emotions. Should he live, the 
diary would be read by his sovereigns. It was pre- 
pared in view of this possibility ; but none but his 
confessor should know the cause of his despair. At 
midnight the storm began to abate, and when 
morning dawned the sailor at the lookout shouted 
*' Land ! " 

P'or two days contrary winds prevented their mak- 
ing the welcome harbor ; but during this time Colon 
enjoyed a relief from anxiety which was like the 
cessation of acute bodily pain. As the waves sub- 
sided, he began to believe that the vows already 
made were sufficient ; that Heaven required no 
greater sacrifice of him than those which he had 
promised. 

The little ship lay at last at anchor in the harbor 
of San Lorenzo, one of the Azores, and belonging to 
the crown of Portugal. Half the crew were de- 
spatched to discharge, as a first and most pressing 



THE STORM. 17 7 

fluty, the vow of the barefooted pilgrimage. They 
were detained by the treachery of the Portuguese 
governor, who attempted also to secure the person 
of the Admiral. Colon's clear mind and vigorous 
action enabled him to defeat the plots of his enemies, 
and to regain his men ; but the fury of wind and 
wave still pursued him. The " Nina's " cables parted 
in the stress of weather, and she was driven from her 
anchorage, and forced to beat about two days and 
nights before being able to return to the harbor ; and 
when the homeward voyage was fairly begun, another 
and a worse storm struck her, tearing the sails as if 
they had been paper. 

The sailors, in desperation, renewed their vows to 
the Virgin, and for the third time the lot fell upon 
Colon to perform the act of penance. The signifi- 
cance of this remarkable pointing of the finger of God 
to him as the Jonah for whose sake the tempests were 
sent could not fail to be felt by all on board. Mutter- 
ings of distrust and discontent were heard. The unruly 
members of the crew, who had been subdued by the 
Admiral's success, now railed against him as a possible 
criminal who hid an evil life under a cloak of piety. 
The night closed in with clouds and darkness, with 
vivid flashes of lightning and the continuous roar of 
the thunder. The '' Niiia " tossed at the mercy of the 
waves. Colon shut himself into his cabin, and fell on 
his knees in an agony of mind. 

" It is now made plain," he said to himself, " that 
in my case acts of outward penance and piety do not 
avail. Will the gift of a taper suffice when God de- 
sires the consecration of a soul? Too long have I 
shut my eyes and ears to the leadings of Providence. 



178 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

God no longer speaks through the gentle voices of his 
servants or the quiet pleadings of conscience, but in 
the sound of the thunder and the threatened terrors 
of death. I, who have vowed my life to the rescue 
of the Holy Sepulchre, have not the consecration of 
the meanest monk ; I, who would lead the armies of 
the Cross, am bound by the ties of earthly affection 
hand and foot. Truly did Ximenes warn me of this 
hour. Should I still remain disobedient to the voice 
of Heaven, I know full well that this night's tempest 
will end all. The envious Portuguese will tell King 
Ferdinand how my shattered vessel anchored in their 
harbor, bearing a wild and improbable story of the 
discovery of a western world, which would seem to 
be the invention of desperate and disheartened men. 
My credit will be gone, my name forgotten. The 
road that I have opened to the kingdom of the Khan 
will be lost again to the world. The Sepulchre will 
remain in the hands of the infidels till a worthier than 
I be raised up to reclaim it. But no ! This cannot 
be. I yield my stubborn will. Deliver me, O God, 
in this hour of peril, and to thee I vow henceforth 
the consecration of my life. I sacrifice at thy altar, 

blessed Virgin, all hopes of earthly happiness, the 
tender ties of conjugal affection, wife and children, 
home and kindred, and embrace the strictest rules of 
religious service. Under my garments I will wear, as 

1 now do, the cord of Saint Francis ; but it shall affili- 
ate me more closely to the spirit of the saint. Lead 
me, O blessed Francis, by the hand as a brother. 
Hitherto I have touched but the hem of thy garment. 
Let me know the spiritual joys which belong to the 
members of thy Seraphic order who follow thy rule 



THE STORM. 179 

with devotion equal to thine own. When my toil- 
some voyages are over, when the ransom of the Sep- 
ulchre is achieved, I will utter before men the vows 
I now take in the presence of God and his angels. I 
will end my days in a convent. Till then, O Lord, 
sustain me in the path that I have chosen." 

He fell forward prostrate upon the floor. Thought 
became inarticulate. Visions of ineffable splendor 
gleamed before his eyes. He remained in a trance- 
like swoon, knowing nothing that passed about 
him. 

When toward midnight the Admiral came on deck, 
the storm had not abated, but land was discovered 
dimly outlined in the east. Colon spoke and moved 
mechanically, like one in a dream; but there was 
something in his serene composure which reassured 
the crew. He seemed incapable of fatigue and un- 
touched by fear. The magnetism of his presence 
once more aroused unquestioning obedience. When 
day broke, it found them at the mouth of the Tagus, 
and in imminent danger of shipwreck on the rocky 
coast ; but the Admiral took the helm, and with an 
unerring hand guided his vessel amid the dangerous 
breakers into the channel of the river and to a safe 
anchorage. 

History tells how the news of his discovery spread 
far and wide, how the King and Queen of Portugal 
did him honor, how he sat in state covered in the 
presence of royalty, and how when he departed on 
his homeward course under fair skies he went loaded 
with gifts and honors. But beneath his velvet coat 
and glittering decorations Colon's heart was heavy. 



i8o COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

He was like a man who has been maimed, and though 
conscious of his loss is incapable of realizing it, since 
he still feels in the stump of arm or leg the same sen- 
sations as if the limb remained intact, the severed 
nerves not yet having learned to take cognizance of 
new conditions. He could not picture the future 
without Beatriz at his side ; and he dared not imagine 
what her judgment of him would be. He must stop 
his ears to the voices of warm-hearted impulse which 
denounced the decision he had made as selfish and 
cruel. It was torment to him to recall the vow he 
had taken with Beatriz beside the couch of their child. 
Her looks and words came back to him with fatal per- 
sistency. He longed for the shelter of the convent 
of La Rabida and the spiritual counsel of Juan Perez. 
He needed a higher authority than his own judg- 
ment to sanction his course, and to assure him that in 
trampling under foot the most sacred of earthly affec- 
tions he was in reality fulfilling the will of God. 

Nothing new can be related of the landing at Palos, 
— the tumult of astonishment and joy which it ex- 
cited ; the delight of the reunited families of the 
sailors, who were heroes henceforth in their neigh- 
borhood ; and the speeding of the tidings as fast 
as post could bear it from one end of Christen- 
dom to the other. The Borgia on his pontifical 
throne heard of and approved the good fortune and 
the pious aims of the Genoese. The monarchs of 
Europe were envious of Spain's acquisition at so slight 
a cost of so vast a territory. Cristoval Colon, the 
obscure chart-maker of Cordova, was in the hour of 
his triumph the equal of princes. 

The full realization of the sweetness of power and 



THE STORM. i8l 

the favor of the great came later. Colon's first 
thought upon his landing was to regain the inward 
peace which had hitherto been the strength of his 
religious life. He fulfilled, with all their grotesque 
conditions, the vows of pilgrimage which he had 
made, walking barefooted and clad only in his shirt 
to the shrine of Our Lady of the Cincture, bearing 
the five-pound taper to Our Lady of Guadalupe, and 
passing a night in prayer in the chapel of the Fran- 
ciscan convent of St. Clair. These acts of penance 
failed to soothe the anxious doubts with which he was 
beset ; and he hastened to the convent of La Rabida, 
and poured into Juan Perez's ear, in the confidence 
of the confessional, the secret of the vow which he 
had made, with God alone for witness. The prior 
gave him consolation and sympathy. '* How canst 
thou doubt that God will bless this sacrifice to thy 
eternal as well as thy temporal welfare?" said Juan 
Perez, embracing him tenderly. " Dost thou remem- 
ber the night when I spoke to thee on the convent 
roof, and quoted the words of Ximenes concerning 
thee ? He will rejoice as I do to welcome thee as a 
brother. Thou hast been called, as was the blessed 
Saint Francis, to leave home and friends. The Lord 
will be thy exceeding great reward." 

" But when regret overpowers me, when life seems 
empty and desolate, when I have no comfort in 
thoughts of the future, and shrink from my happiest 
memories of the past, how am I to be assured that 1 
have a calling for the new life? " asked Colon. " May 
it not have been that the fear of death unnerved me 
and overpowered my choice ? " 

" These temptations of doubt beset every saint on 



l82 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

his entrance to the rehgious hfe," said Juan Perez. 
" Do not expect comfort till thou hast passed through 
the vale of misery, nor peace till thou hast been tried 
by every assault of the enemy of souls." 

" But the keenest torment is the thought of the 
sorrow I shall cause a gentle, trusting heart," said 
Colon. " Beatriz Enriquez has been to me a faith- 
ful wife — " 

" Mark well my words," interrupted Friar Perez. 
'* Had thy vow remained unuttered, thou wouldst now 
be many fathoms deep beneath the stormy waves of 
the ocean. Beatriz Enriquez would be a widow, and 
desolate. It is as if thou hadst been parted from her 
by death, and then restored to life by the intercession 
of the saints, and the new life is not thine own. It is 
devoted to the service of God." 

Colon caught Juan Perez's hand and was about to 
press it to his lips, when the worthy friar withdrew it 
quickly, and clasped his friend in his arms. The eyes 
of both were moist with tears. 

" Since thou hast broken with the love which too 
often imperils the soul," said Perez, " thou wilt find 
that there is a friendship which is like the love of 
angels." 



CHAPTER XIX. 

THROUGH DEEP WATERS. 

"DEATRIZ sat one morning in her room in Ro- 
■*-^ drigo's house with Fernando, who leaned against 
her knee, while a gayly illuminated manuscript was 
spread upon her lap from which the child was learn- 
ing his letters. In the deep embrasure of the arched 
window Diego sat upon a cushion, busy also with a 
book, from which now and then he directed a glance 
of loving admiration towards the mother and child ; 
and often his look was returned with a smile, in the 
pauses of the lesson. 

" Did you in truth study out of this book when you 
were a little girl?" asked Fernando, willing to divert 
attention from too strict an enforcement of his duty. 

" Yes," answered Beatriz ; " my dear mother held 
me just so, with her arm about me, and pointed out 
the A's and the O's and that great yellow T, with the 
dragon curled about it. That seemed to me a beautiful 
letter. I wondered at the patience of the good monks, 
who worked so faithfully with pen and brush to preserve 
these old stories for us. Now they print the letters, 
and it is much easier and quicker ; but they are no 
longer beautiful." 

"The stories are the same," said Diego. "That 
legend of San Cristoval is in this study-book of mine ; 



184 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

but here it is told in Latin. At La Rabida they had 
more than a hundred books, — some written, some 
printed." 

Beatriz nodded, with a sudden wistful dilating of 
the eyes, as if she saw a vision from the past. She 
mechanically continued Fernando's lesson ; but she 
no longer responded to his childish remarks. 

*' Here comes Don Rodrigo home from Seville ! " 
exclaimed Diego, looking from the window. " The 
horse he has ridden is white with foam, and all the 
servants are running to meet him." 

"Can there be bad news?" exclaimed Beatriz, 
rising and hurrying to the window. Her brother 
saw her, and waved his hat three times about his 
head. He was smiling, and talking eagerly. Beatriz 
ran through the house and into the courtyard, fol- 
lowed by the two boys. Half a dozen voices were 
by this time retailing the story that Rodrigo had 
brought. 

" Cristoval Colon has returned ! The tidings have 
come from Lisbon. He found a vast new country in 
the Western sea, and has brought back from it plants 
and animals, gold and jewels, and some of the natives 
of those strange lands." 

Beatriz ran to her brother, and clasped his arm. 

" Is it true ? Has my husband returned ? Is he 
safe and well?" she asked. 

** Yes, yes," answered Rodrigo, while he kissed his 
wife and Beatriz, and gave a hand to Fernando and 
Diego. 

" And our Juan? " asked Antonia. 

" Safe too," he answered ; " though only one ship 
returns, and my brother Diego remains behind. He 



THROUGH DEEP WA TERS. 185 

is left in command of a fortress in the island of His- 
paniola, until the Admiral shall return again to relieve 
him and enlarge the settlement, — the first made in 
the new world. It is a glorious triumph for the Ad- 
miral ; and thou, my sister, art the wife of a man whose 
name is sounded from the Tagus to the Guadalquivir, 
and farther still, throughout the countries of Europe. 
The King of Portugal received him as if he had been 
a prince, and made him sit covered beside him. 
Doubtless the King of Spain will do him yet greater 
honor, since it is he who will profit by Colon's suc- 
cess ; while King John is vexed with envy that Portugal 
has had no hand in the achievement." 

" And our Juan will share in the distinction," said 
Antonia. "We, too, who aided and abetted Colon, and 
sent our son and brother with him, — we shall not be 
forgotten, I hope? " 

" No one is much regarded in the matter save the 
Admiral himself," said Rodrigo. " To hear the talk 
of the people, thou wouldst think him a demi-god ; 
but nothing is known as yet with certainty. The king 
and queen are at Barcelona, and Colon is reported to 
be still with his ship, and now on his homeward way. 
When we see him, we shall know all ; but no doubt, 
their Highnesses will summon him first to them, as is 
but fitting, since he is their Viceroy." 

Fernando was running about among the servants, 
telling each in succession that his father had come 
home, and was now a man as great as the king. 
Beatriz stood leaning on Diego's arm, while tears 
of joy fell from her eyes. 

" Thank God, thank God ! " was all that she could 
say. 



1 86 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

Diego held his head proiully, and smiled trium- 
phantly. In Rodiigo's household his place had been 
given him by sufferance, and he was often reminded 
that he had no share in the noble f:imily of the En- 
ritpiezes de Arana. They were now basing their 
future hopes on the connection with the despised 
Genoese, who had achieved, as they had never done, 
world-wide distinction. 

After the news had been discussed and commented 
upon with every note of admiration and wonder, the 
little circle broke up to spread it further among friends 
and neighbors. Eeatriz hastened to the cathedral to 
offer her thanksgivings under its solemn arches. Her 
heart was full to overflowing, as she knelt at the shrine 
which was doubly consecrated to her as the place where 
she had first met her husband. The memory of that 
day came back vividly, and that of the last time they 
knelt here together, hand in hand. She could hardly 
wait now for the days to pass which must elapse be- 
fore he should again kneel at her side, and join with 
her in praise to the God who had blessed and pre- 
ser\^ed him. 

" Joy ! joy ! " the swallows seemed to sing, as they 
darted and twittered outside, under the arches of the 
courtyard. Every one she met as she went homeward 
seemed to Bcatriz to recognize her as the wife of Don 
Colon the Admiral, and to congratulate her with a 
friendly smile. Rodrigo's house was decorated at 
doors and windows with fluttering pennons, and at 
night with candles and torches. Old friends and 
new crowded the house to hear more of the strange 
tidings, which were scanty at the best, but which 
included the great and amazing fact of the discovery 



THROUGH DEEP WATERS. 187 

of a new world, and offered unlimited scope for 
conjecture. 

"You are a great lady now, Seiiora," said old 
Teresa, as she assisted her mistress to disrobe for the 
night, — an office which she refused to depute to any 
of the younger maids. " You will live in state like 
one of the queen's ladies, or the princesses themselves 
maybe, for they tell that King John treated Senor 
Don Colon like a prince of the blood." 

Beatriz took up her polished mirror, and gazed 
earnestly into it, with a smile on her lips. 

"Have I changed, Teresa, in all these months?" 
she asked. " Do 1 look older than when he left 
me?" 

" Now that you smile in that joyous way, you look 
for all the world as you did when you sat beside Senor 
Colon at your wedding-supper," said Teresa. " I 
never saw you look so beautiful before or since till 
now. Oh, he will be happy to see your face once 
more ! I warrant he has seen none like it in travelling 
over half the world." 

" Fie upon thee, Teresa, for a flatterer ! " said 
Beatriz. " If happiness can make one beautiful, I 
shall seem so. No one can know the weary pain of 
parting when there is no certain day of return to look 
forward to. Could I have known, even a week ago, 
that to-day he would be in Spain, — for he has doubt- 
less ere this landed safely in Palos, — could I have 
counted the hours and minutes, it would have been a 
solace to me, for never has my heart been so heavy 
as of late." 

" You will look well in robes of velvet and satin, 
decked with the jewels he will bring," said Teresa. 



1 88 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

" I have heard no account of what treasures he has 
found ; but at any time a courier may arrive with a 
laden pack- mule, that Senor Colon will surely send in 
advance of his coming. I hope I may have the un- 
doing of the packages. Pearls I warrant there will 
be as big as hen's eggs, — for such 1 have heard they 
have in the Indies, — and diamonds and carbuncles 
to outshine the queen's." 

" Thou mayst be disappointed in thy fine dreams, 
Teresa," said Beatriz. " I ask none of the riches 
thou dost picture, if I but have my husband once 
more beside me. I have been lonely without 
him." 

She leaned her head upon her hand and sighed. 

" He will come fiist enough," said Teresa. " Do 
not lose your smiles, Seiiora. Grief and tears make 
wrinkles which laughter smoothes out. He will have 
many affairs to attend to, for great men's time is 
never their own, and the king and queen must be 
served first, let a man be ten times married." 

Beatriz smiled through unshed tears. 

" I am too impatient," she said ; "■ but can I be 
sure, Teresa, that he longs to come to me? I would 
not doubt his affection ; but now that he is great and 
triumphant, will not the notice of the king and the 
praise of the world suffice for his reward, and the life 
of the court be more to his taste than the quiet home 
in Cordova? " 

"You do but talk that I may contradict you," said 
Teresa. "Would you not fly to him if you had 
wings? Surely he loves you as well as you love 
him." 

" Ah, Teresa, do men ever love so well as women? " 



I 



THROUGH DEEP WATERS. 189 

asked Beatriz. " How soon, thinkcst thou, will he 
write to me?" 

"When he can first obtain the use of paper and 
ink," answered Teresa ; " but if he is like me, it will 
take him some time further to fill a sheet. I once 
had the parish priest write a letter for me to my son 
in Salamanca ; but though the carrier was waiting to 
bear it, I had to let him go and send it by the next, 
for with all I had to say, I could not get beyond the 
' God bless thee's ' and ' How is thy health? ' and the 
priest had no time to sit all day at my bidding. So, 
with this and that, it was a week ere it was finished." 

" I would go to him did I dare venture," said 
Beatriz ; " but to meet him unbidden, — perhaps un- 
welcome, amid the cares he is burdened with, — that 
would not be the meeting I should choose." 

" Wait but a day or two, a week at the most," 
said Teresa. " If you do not hear in that time, I will 
forfeit my week's earnings and buy myself a fool's 
cap and bells." 

The letter upon whose arrival Teresa had staked 
her reputation for sagacity came one day, together 
with a sealed casket from Seville, brought by the 
royal post messenger. The whole family gathered in 
delighted expectation to see the seals broken, the 
gifts displayed, and the more precious letter unfolded. 
Beatriz opened it with trembling hands. It was the 
second letter which her husband had addressed to 
her; and, as before, the household surrounded her 
with an eager desire for tidings. Old Don Fernando 
sat in his great chair, his wasted frame propped up 
with cushions, and his thin hands clutching nervously 
at the tassels of his robe. 



190 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

" It is only a small casket," he said, in a child- 
ish tone of petulant disappointment. "Were it 
full of gold, it would not be the half that I ex- 
pected." 

" It is light," said Teresa, weighing it in her arms. 
" It holds pearls and emeralds, mayhap, of which a 
few would make a fortune." 

"Hold thy peace!" commanded Rodrigo; "the 
letter is to be read." 

"There is an inner folded sheet for me," said 
Beatriz, '* which I will read alone if it please' you ; 
and here are only a few words to mention the gifts in 
the casket, and to whom they are sent. Open it, and 
distribute them, Rodrigo." 

She handed the sheet of paper to her brother, and 
ran to her room, full of eager happiness. Rodrigo 
opened the casket, and displayed to the inquisitive 
spectators first a small stuffed bird of gorgeous 
plumage. 

" The bird," he read, tracing the place with his 
finger upon the written sheet of directions, " is for 
my little Fernando. It cannot sing, but it may tell 
him of the strange land where it built its nest. The 
carved gourd is for my son Diego ; perhaps the 
water he quaffs from it may have an unwonted power 
of refreshment. The golden cincture and the brace- 
lets of gold are for Beatriz Enriquez. The solid 
ingot of gold is for her father. The iron-wood spear- 
head is for Pedro de Arana. The two chains of shells 
are for Don Rodrigo and Antonia his wife. Other 
gifts to them will be carried by their son Juan, who 
will shortly return to his home in Cordova. The ball 
of spun cotton is for the good Teresa. Be assured of 



THRO UGH D EEP WA TERS. 1 9 1 

my affectionate remembrance, and pray for the good 
of my soul." 

It was signed with a curious cipher, which indicated 
the initials of his name and of the saints he especially 
worshipped. 

" What ! " cried Don Enriquez, " only this pitiful 
lump of gold in place of the vast riches he promised 
me?" 

" It is an earnest of more," said Rodrigo, conceal- 
ing his own disappointment. *' It is absolutely pure, 
and of greater value than one would think. Then, 
see the odd-shaped girdle and bracelets which he has 
sent his wife. They are of pure gold, though thin, 
and chiefly of worth from their rarity." 

" No jewels, no pearls ! " exclaimed Teresa, " and 
only a ball of cotton for me. The linen I spin is far 
finer." 

" It is something to show to thy grandchildren," 
said Rodrigo. " It was spun by the fingers of the 
strange natives of unknown regions. And here, 
Antonia, is the chain he sends thee." 

"Worthless shells ! " said Antonia, almost in tears. 
" I hope our Juan has more than this to show for his 
travels ! " 

*' Thou dost not consider that these are but tokens 
which Colon , has hastily collected and sent in ad- 
vance," said Rodrigo, reassuringly. " He will bring 
when he comes things of greater value, too heavy to 
be carelessly transported. Further explorations in a 
country so rich in gold on a first essay will doubtless 
load a ship to the water's edge. The talk is already 
of a second expedition. Beatriz will have more to 
tell us when she has read her letter, and Juan will 
soon be here to answer all our questions." 



192 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

Meantime Beatriz had locked herself within her 
room, and falling upon her knees beside her couch, 
she spread the sheet of paper upon it, kissing the 
letter, and pausing to wipe the tears of joy from her 
eyes. As she read it she sank upon the floor, and 
held it more closely before her. What did it mean? 
Was she dreaming? The letter ran : — 

To Beatriz Enriquez, to whoin my constant friendship 
is and shall ever be given : 
You will rejoice with me that I am brought by God's 
grace safely to the conclusion of my enterprise. 

'' What ! " thought Beatriz, while a sudden pang 
pierced her heart. *' Does he write thus coldly, and 
no longer say ihotc to me?" She read on hastily, 
with growing anguish, as if each word made part of 
her death-warrant : — 

I write in the Franciscan convent in Seville, where I 
have but now received a letter from our sovereigns or- 
dering me to come at once to meet them in Barcelona, 
and authorizing me to make all needful arrangements for 
a new expedition, which I am to conduct forthwith to the 
lands of the Indies. I have opened the way. Others 
may follow. But I must still lead, since it may require 
more than one weary voyage to gather the gold needed 
to ransom the Sepulchre. When that purpose is achieved, 
I have taken a vow to end my days in a convent ; and 
until that time to lead, as much as may be, a life apart 
from the world, since in answer to my prayer in a time of 
peril I was delivered and brought safely to the end of my 
voyage. The vow which I made in the hour of need is 
the duty which I must perform. This you will confess, my 
friend, when you consider that the life thus saved by a 
miracle is no longer mine, nor yours, but, being the new 



THROUGH DEEP WATERS. 193 

gift of God, belongs henceforth to him. Juan de Arana 
will relate to you more fully the danger we were in. But 
for my vow, I and all with me would have perished. Yet, 
I pray you, guard the secret of it, which none knows but 
my friend. Friar Juan Perez; for since I must live for 
weary years in the tumult of the world, I cannot as yet 
openly declare it. I now wear the Franciscan garb; but 
when the king gives me audience, I must hide it under 
robes of state. This is pain and torment to me. I would 
that the quiet walls of a convent already enclosed me. 
Pray for my soul's good, as I shall ever do for yours. 
Turn to God for your consolation, and may his blessing 
ever be with you ! 

Cristoval Colon. 

Beatriz read the letter again and again, but she 
could hardly grasp the fatal truth that it contained. 
Could it be her husband who wrote thus? Was the 
tie between them severed, and by his choice? At 
first, indignation mingled with the storm of grief that 
overwhelmed her, — the instinctive anger that rebels 
against an unmerited blow. 

" Cruel, heartless man ! " she cried, wringing her 
hands. '* Thou hast never loved me. Thou knowest 
not what it is to love." But the past was too full 
of happy memories to enable her to maintain this 
charge. " If he still loves me, he must suffer as I 
do," she thought, with a quick change of feeling, — 
'' nay, more, since he must grieve to inflict such pain 
on one beloved." 

Again she read the letter, and thought she could 
detect, beneath its careful repression of emotion, an 
undertone of sadness. Forgetting self, she was filled 
with an infinite pity for the man who had injured her. 

" Poor soul ! " she sobbed, " homeless and lonely, 
13 



194 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

weary and sad, in the midst of his triumph. Will he 
find peace in the new life I cannot share? Will he 
be happier in his convent than in our quiet home? " 

She sprang to her feet, and paced the floor. Fer- 
nando came and tapped upon her door, calling her 
name. She clinched her hands, and pressed them 
to her heart ; but she made no answer. P'ernando's 
confidence in his f^ither must not be shaken. 

" It is no sin to love one's child," she said to her- 
self with bitter irony. " Fernando is not cast off and 
denied ; he may still love and be loved. He must 
not know that his father can be cruel." 

The thought that time was passing, that her secret 
must be kept, that her lips must smile while her heart 
was breaking, made her nerve herself to gain the com- 
posure which seemed impossible of attainment. There 
was a sudden sound of lamentation in the house, and 
Beatriz flung open her door in terror. Rodrigo was 
calling her. 

" Come quickly, Beatriz, to my father ! " 

Beatriz ran at his summons. She found him in the 
hall bending over Don Fernando, who still sat in his 
cushioned chair. The old man held the ingot of gold 
tightly clutched in his fingers ; but they were stiff and 
motionless. He was dead. 

Antonia was wailing, and wringing her hands. " We 
left him alone, as it chanced," she said. " I asked 
before I went if he would return to his chamber, but 
he shook his head and seemed about to fall asleep. 
It was Diego who found him thus, dead, with Colon's 
gift still in his hand." 

Beatriz sank upon the floor in a swoon. Fernando 
and Diego both cried out that she was dying ; and 



THROUGH DEEP WATERS. 195 

the house that had been so full of joy was for a time 
in the confusion of the wildest grief. Beatriz, who 
had revived only to fall again into a stupor, lay uncon- 
scious upon her couch ; and in the great state cham- 
ber the priests, who had been hastily summoned, 
prayed beside Don Fernando's bier. Rodrigo de- 
voted himself to Antonia, who was overcome by her 
feelings, and required her husband's constant attend- 
ance. The servants sat whispering in the kitchen. 
Teresa was sobbing beside her mistress's bed. 

In the midst of this disorder a Dominican friar 
entered the house of mourning, and took upon him- 
self the relinquished authority of its head. He sent 
the two boys, who were frightened and forgotten, to 
the house of a neighbor. He gave each servant a 
necessary task ; and entering Beatrix's room, he took 
her hand, felt her pulse, and rebuking Teresa's loud 
demonstrations of grief, ordered her to bring a cup of 
wine of an old and strong vintage. 

"■ Her heart is weak," he said. " She needs a stim- 
ulant to assist its action." 

Teresa hurried to do his bidding, impressed by his 
tone and manner, which commanded obedience. 
When she had gone, the cowled friar took her seat at 
the bedside, his fingers still lightly touching the wrist 
of his unconscious patient. Suddenly he stooped and 
picked up a letter which lay open upon the floor. He 
read it with a quick, devouring gaze, then folded it and 
slipped it beneath Beatrix's hand. The touch aroused 
her. She sat up and opened her eyes as Teresa en- 
tered the room, and she stretched out her arms to the 
old nurse, like a child who wishes to be comforted. 

" Father ! Cristoval ! " she cried, and sank back 



jgS COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

among the pillows with a burst of tears. Teresa 
smoothed her hair with a caressing touch, and offered 
her the wine, which she swallowed obediently. 

" Do not weep for your father, my daughter," said 
the friar ; " though he died unshriven, let us hope 
that he was prepared, and that his soul is in 
Paradise." 

Beatriz for the first time noticed the Dominican. 
She started in alarm, and her fingers closed instinc- 
tively upon the letter which lay within her grasp. She 
looked at it, and then thrust it hastily within her 
bosom. 

" Leave me alone with the senora," said the friar 
to Teresa, with a commanding wave of the hand. " I 
have words of consolation which are for her alone." 

^' Do not go," said Beatriz ; " Don Garcia may 
speak before you what he has to say." 

" Holy Virgin ! " cried Teresa, raising her eyes in 
amazement. " Is it really you, Don Garcia de Silva? " 

" Friar Garcia," he corrected her. " I have taken 
the vows of the Dominicans, and no longer live in the 
world. I was about to say, Senora, that the letter 
which I found upon the floor, and have just read, does 
not surprise me." 

" Go, Teresa," said Beatriz, quickly ; " but first help 
me to the window. The air is stifling." 

She walked with tottering footsteps to the window- 
seat, where she sank upon the cushion and leaned 
half fainting upon the sifl. 

" Go ! " she repeated. " I wifl call thee when I 
need thee." Then she turned to Garcia. " Why are 
you here?" she asked. "How dare you read the 
letter which was for my eye alone?" 



THROUGH DEEP WATERS, 197 

Garcia rose and paced the floor before her, with 
his head bent, and his hands clasped behind his 
back. 

" I came to you because you were in trouble," he 
said. " I am never ignorant of what concerns you. 
The vision of Ben Hamet is thus fulfilled. We have 
now a common cause to hate the man who has wrecked 
both our lives. It may console your wounded pride 
to know that he who has injured you shall not escape 
with impunity. He is now great and triumphant, on 
the topmost wave of success. I am a poor obscure 
friar ; but justice will be done in the end. I shall fol- 
low him with my vengeance, though half the world 
lies between us. To my hatred of him is added the 
flame of righteous anger, since henceforth I champion 
your cause. I will track him as the wolf tracks its 
prey. I will rend his heart with anguish, such as you 
suffer now. He shall give tear for tear, pang for pang. 
He shall find no peace in living, or comfort in death. 
His age shall be without honor, and his hopes in Ufe 
shall be blasted." 

He had spoken with a fierce rapidity which Beatriz 
tried in vain to interrupt. She now straightened her 
slender figure, and looked at him with an expression 
of courageous self-renunciation. 

" I love the man whom you denounce," she said. 
" Your words, contrary to your purpose, have given 
me a new object in life. Instead of the empty black- 
ness of despair to which I looked forward, I now see 
a divine mission prepared for me. I will heal the 
wounds that you inflict. I will warn him against your 
machinations. I will spend my days in working for 
his happiness, and in furthering his ambitions," 



198 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

*' Foolish one ! " exclaimed Garcia. *• How blind 
is a woman's love ! Hope not to oppose thyself to 
me. Thou canst not mingle with the world, nor inllu- 
ence the intrigues of court politics. Already Seiior 
Colon has been in danger from a whisper which 
reached the sovereign's ears, that while he lingered in 
Portugal, it was more from choice than necessity, and 
that he was plotting to relinquish the fruits of his 
discovery into the hands of King John. How the ru- 
mor started who can tell? It foiled of the mark, but 
other poisoned arrows sent by an unseen hand may 
prove more f:ital. And thou in thy retirement, igno- 
rant of all that passes, — thou wouldst attempt the guar- 
dianship of thy recreant husband, the man who has 
cast thee off in the hour of his triumph, as a wanton 
child in the heyday of his sport plucks a flower but 
to fling it aside." 

Beatriz did not lose her composure. 

" I have suffered too much to be hurt by words," 
she said, " though yours contain a poignant sting. 
For myself, there is nothing to fear. I am stronger 
than you think. You can only hurt me by injuring 
him ; and I beg you will remember, Garcia de Silva, 
that when you assail with secret malignity the noblest 
of men, you are giving me the anguish you pretend 
you would willingly spare me." 

"If thou wilt cling to the man who discards thee, 
I can spare thee no pain, thou art foredoomed," said 
Garcia. *' Pride, self-reliance, a scorn for him who 
has given thee the crudest wound a woman can suffer, 
a willingness that he should pay the penalty he has 
deserved, — this would make thee free to live a Hfe 
of happiness. Thy beauty would make thee renowned. 



THROUGH DKKP WATERS. 199 

Thou couldst crmimund influence to advance thee in 
any sphere of life, even the highest. Poets would sing 
thy i)raises. Artists would c(;[;y thy features. Do not 
embrace a dead past. Forget it. Rise in thy wo- 
man's pride, and trample it under foot." 

" My husband has done no purposed wrong," said 
Beatriz, ignoring his words concerning herself. " A 
mistaken devotion has forced him to a decision, for 
which I must innocently suffer ; but I blame him not 
for the grief he inflicts. If his vow were necessary to 
preserve his safety, should I not willingly accept this 
suffering, that he may live? " 

CJarcia looked at her with wondering admiration. 

" He was never worthy of thee," he said. " No man 
can deserve such love." 



CHAPTER XX. 

THE TRIUMPH. 

T ITTLE Fernando came home the day after his 
■^ grandfather's funeral. He was oppressed by 
the quiet of the house, his mother's tears and mourn- 
ing robes. He asked a hundred questions with child- 
hood's innocently cruel bluntness. 

*• I do not like it here," he said. '* When will my 
father come? When shall we live in the old house 
again? " 

" I cannot tell. Run now and play with Diego," 
said Beatriz. 

" Diego will not play," answered Fernando. " He 
has grown so old, and he is as quiet as a priest ; and 
every one weeps now. Aunt Antonia chides me if I 
make a noise. I wish my father would come and 
make me a kite. He will be surprised to see how 
well I can shoot." 

At this moment Diego came running into the room. 

"Your cousin Juan has come, Fernando," he said. 
" Mother, Juan is here." 

"And my father too? " cried Fernando, leaping for 
joy. " Has he come too? " 

He did not wait for an answer, but rushed to wel- 
come the wanderers. When Beatriz joined the family 
circle, Fernando was weeping loudly for a disappoint- 



THE TRIUMPH. 201 

ment which no one understood. Juan de Arana had 
not heard of his grandfather's death until he reached 
Cordova. He preserved a proper solemnity of man- 
ner, but he was not deeply affected by the old man's 
death. His joy at reaching home far outbalanced his 
grief, and by degrees the others caught the contagion 
of his gay humor. Beatriz alone was unable to smile 
in the general happiness which Juan's return diffused. 
She listened eagerly to his stories, and begged him to 
tell the details of the storm, which, with a young man's 
neglect of past danger, he was disposed to pass over 
as of Httle consequence. 

" But tell me, Juan, were you not in danger of 
death? " she urged. 

" Oh, yes, we were saved as if by a miracle," he 
said. " For days we would not have given a real for 
our chances of weathering the storm. But now that 
is forgotten. The Admiral wished me to go with him 
to Barcelona ; but I did not care to march in proces- 
sion with Indians and monkeys to make a show for the 
pleasure of their Highnesses. Home was the place I 
longed for." 

Antonia pressed her son's hand with a delighted 
smile. Rodrigo looked with pride at the stalwart 
young man. 

"Do not take it as showing great love for his 
parents," said Rodrigo to his wife. " I wager, our 
boy stopped at a house by the gate for a kiss or two 
first on his way here." 

Juan blushed, but he laughed with frank good- 
humor. " Not one or two, but a hundred," he said. 
" My Anna has promised soon to fix the day for our 
wedding." 



202 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

" Since thy grandfather has died, it must not be too 
soon," said Antonia, repressing her smiles. 

"But what of Colon?" asked Rodrigo, quickly. 
"Why is he not with thee?" 

Beatriz leaned against the back of the large carved 
chair she sat in, and grasped the arms of it for 
support. 

" Oh, the Admiral," said Juan, " is too great a man 
to think first of home." Here he recollected himself, 
and cast an apologetic look at Beatriz. " Of course 
he must wish to come, but he is no longer his own 
master. The king and queen will have him satisfy 
their ears with the account of all I have related to 
you, and more besides ; for no one but Don Colon kept 
the exact reckoning of our course, and no one could 
well retrace it without his guidance. Thus he is to 
be sent back at once with more ships and men ; and 
more wish to go than the whole navy of Spain could 
carry. They may go this time without me." 

"Thou wilt then give up all thy hopes of riches?" 
said Rodrigo ; " for the profits of the first venture seem 
but scanty." 

" Gold is not there to be had merely for the carry- 
ing of it," said Juan, "and others are welcome to 
what they find. I am content to stay in Cordova with 
my Anna." 

" He is a lovesick boy," said Antonia, laughing. 

" I am not sick with love," said Juan, stoutly ; " but 
if love is not worth more than gold, the poets have 
told lies." 

" Love is the gold of youth," said Rodrigo ; " enjoy 
it while it is lavished upon thee. When thou art 
old, experience will teach thee that the yellow metal 



THE TRIUMPH. 203 

lasts when smiles have faded, and hearts have grown 

cold." 

" Will not Colon come to see his wife and children 
before he again leaves Spain?" asked Antonia, with 
severity. 

'' Heaven pity me for my forgetfulness ! " exclaimed 
Juan ; " and do you, Aunt Beatriz, forgive me. The 
Admiral desired me to say that the cares of business 
would prevent his coming to Cordova, but that he 
begged you to send his sons, Diego and Fernando, to 
Palos, where he could embrace them and take farewell 
of them before he sailed again. Friar Perez will send 
an escort for the boys, and will engage to return them 
in safety to you again." 

" How is this?" exclaimed Antonia. " Has he sent 
no message to his wife? " 

Juan shook his head with a deprecating look. An- 
tonia and Rodrigo looked at Beatriz's pallid face and 
trembling lips with anxious curiosity. 

*' My husband has explained the matter to my satis- 
faction in his letter to me," said Beatriz, struggling to 
maintain her composure. 

"Thou art more easily satisfied than I should be," 
said Antonia. " What ! send for his children, and not 
for his wife ! I have always told thee he did not love 
thee well." 

The tears overflowed Beatriz's eyes, but she wiped 
them hastily away. 

<'Thou hast no right to misjudge him thus, be- 
ing ignorant of the necessity of his position," she 
replied. 

" Be quiet, Antonia ! " said Rodrigo, with a warning 
look at his wife. 



204 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

*'Thou canst not stop my mouth," said Antonia. 
" I declare it to be a crying shame that Colon's wife 
is not now at his side. Now that he sits in the pres- 
ence of kings, she too should be honored, and her 
family with her, the more so since an Enriquez 
stooped low to marry the wool-comber's son. Thus 
does good fortune change a man. I can never for- 
give him." 

Pedro Enriquez had finished his studies in Sala- 
manca, and was visiting a friend in Barcelona when 
the news of his father's death reached him too late 
for him to return to the funeral. Having heard of 
his brother-in-law's triumphant success and expected 
arrival in Barcelona, he deferred his departure in 
order to meet and congratulate the famous Admiral. 

On the day of Colon's entrance Barcelona was 
decorated as if for a royal progress. Every balcony 
was gay with garlands and banners, and rich tapes- 
tries were stretched from house to house across the 
narrow streets. The day was bright with sunshine, 
and the soft spring breezes stirred the floating pen- 
nons, and the fluttering mantles of the ladies, who sat 
in every window and balcony. The streets were 
thronged with a pushing and struggling but good- 
humored crowd. Peasants and villagers, with eyes 
and mouth agape, elbowed citizens and artisans fresh 
from their shops and work-benches. Those were 
fortunate who could from the house-tops obtain the 
earliest tidings, and watch the movements of the cav- 
alcade of nobles and grandees who were deputed 
to wait by the gates and welcome the Viceroy of 
the Indies. 



THE TRIUMPH. 205 

At the royal palace great preparations had been 
made for the reception. A side wall of the audience 
hall had been removed, and a platform built which 
extended toward the square, while the two royal 
thrones and the seat of the Prince Royal were re- 
inforced by a richly decorated arm-chair destined 
for the Admiral. Over all extended a canopy of 
gold brocade. 

When a shout from thousands of throats announced 
Colon's entrance into the city, and the royal messen- 
gers sent from the gates confirmed the tidings, the 
king and queen took their places on their thrones, 
with the dignitaries of the kingdoms of Castile and 
Aragon on either side, and the attendants of their 
households about them in their proper places. The 
nobles and prelates with the ladies of the palace 
crowded the spaces reserved for them in the great 
hall ; and Pedro de Arana, by the favor of a friend, 
obtained a place among the foremost. 

The little procession which wound through the 
streets made no show of pomp or splendor. Sail- 
ors with sunburned and weather-beaten faces followed 
the royal standard, which was carried by a pilot. 
They bore branches of strange trees, tree-like ferns, 
great calabashes, and tall reeds ; various mineral and 
vegetable products suited for use in medicine or in 
the arts ; a show of golden ornaments and weapons 
of different sorts. Then came cages, carried by 
poles at the four corners, filled with living animals, 
and platforms where stuffed beasts and birds were 
arranged in strange juxtaposition. An enormous alli- 
gator divided the attention with a huge snake. But 
the most striking feature of the parade was afforded 



2o6 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

by the seven Indians, with their dark skins almost 
hidden by red and white paint, their singular costumes, 
including strange decorations of the hair, broad brace- 
lets and anklets, and strings of beads. The Admiral 
walked last, with a firm step and a calm face, un- 
moved by the shouts of the crowding multitude, who 
were with difficulty kept at a distance by his squires. 

When he ascended the platform, the procession 
had formed on two sides, and remained standing while 
he advanced through the hall to the royal thrones. 
The sovereigns rose at his approach, and insisted 
that he should be seated in the chair reserved for 
him before they resumed their places, and that he 
should wear his hat in their presence as a grandee 
of Spain. They listened with eager attention to the 
account he gave, at their command, of the new world 
he had discovered, which he illustrated by the dif- 
ferent products he had brought with him. These 
were presented at the appropriate moment, at the 
foot of the throne, by the native Indians, who ad- 
vanced at his signal, and displayed their gifts to 
the sovereigns. The Admiral was willing to deepen 
the impression he had made by every legitimate 
means; and these strange children of the unknown 
world were of more interest to the devout Isabella 
than any of its richest productions. It was for their 
salvation from the darkness of heathenism that the 
expedition had been undertaken, as Columbus re- 
minded the king and queen. Countless multitudes 
were waiting the message which the servants of the 
Cross would carry to them by the path which he 
had opened. It was a glorious prospect, which 
would redound more to their credit than the acqui- 



THE TRIUMPH. 207 

sition of the vast territories which he had gained 
for them. 

Isabella, with a sudden impulse of religious enthu- 
siasm, fell upon her knees ; and all present, moved 
by sympathy, followed her example, praising God for 
the glorious achievement, while the choir of the 
royal chapel chanted the " Te Deum." Then the 
Admiral was conducted to the lodgings prepared for 
him, and the pageant was over, though never to be 
forgotten by those who had witnessed it. 

Colon was wearied by the events of the day, but 
he could not deny himself to the friends who came 
to congratulate him. Alonzo de Quintanilla, Luis 
de Santangel, the two Geraldinis, and the painter 
De Castro were among the rest. At a late hour 
Pedro Enriquez presented himself. He had been 
delayed by difficulties surrounding his admission, and 
he had found it necessary to press his claim of re- 
lationship before he obtained a grudging permission 
to enter from a Franciscan friar who seemed to be 
of chief authority in the Admiral's household. 

" He has seen many people, and is about to retire 
to rest," said the friar; "but since you will take no 
denial he will, perchance, receive you." 

Pedro found Colon alone in his bedchamber. The 
Admiral had divested himself of his splendid gar- 
ments, and was clad in the gray robe of a Franciscan 
friar, with sandalled feet and a hempen girdle. No 
one would have recognized the triumphant Viceroy of 
the Indies and Admiral of the Ocean Sea, so strangely 
metamorphosed. He blushed deeply, as Pedro sprang 
forward to greet him. He gave his hand to the 
young man, but did not offer to embrace him. Pedro 



2o8 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

was chilled by his reserve ; and his pride took alarm, 
thinking that in the hour of success he was regarded 
as an unwelcome intruder. 

" Have you forgotten me ? " asked Pedro ; " have 
I outgrown your remembrance?" 

" I know you," said Colon ; '' you are the same, 
though you are now a man. Are your family well?" 

"My family?" repeated Pedro, in surprise; *'of 
course you have heard of the death of my father." 

"No," exclaimed Colon. " Is the old man dead? 
Alas, alas ! Life is full of sorrow. Heaven alone can 
console us." 

He uttered the last words mechanically, as if they 
were a set phrase, said from a sense of duty ; then, 
as he met Pedro's fixed and wondering look, he rose 
from his seat, and paced the floor in agitation. 

" I grieve for your loss ; it will leave the house 
lonely," he added. " How does your sister support 
it?" 

" My sister ? Beatriz ? It is a great grief to her, 
of a certainty. But has she not written to you?" 

"Since my return I have been ever moving," re- 
plied Colon. " I wrote to her, but have as yet had 
no answer." 

" There must have been messages sent to you full 
of joy at the good news which was afterward so 
quickly saddened by my father's death," said Pedro. 
" I return at once to Cordova, and will bear any 
tokens you choose to send. When will you go 
thither?" 

" I am the servant of God and of the king," an- 
swered Colon. " Everything is moving quickly for- 
ward to a new expedition which I am to lead. 



THE TRIUMPH. 209 

Life offers no rest for me. Say to your sister that 
I sorrow for her loss ; that I will pray for God's 
richest blessing upon her." 

" She would rather hear the words from your own 
lips," said Pedro, impatiently. " Can it be that you 
will not hasten to console her in her bereavement? " 

*' I dare not," repHed Colon, impulsively. He 
regretted the words as soon as they were spoken, but 
feeling it necessary to explain himself, he went on : 
** I have chosen a path of duty, Pedro, that leads me 
away from love and happiness. Should I see Beatriz, 
it would be but to distress her heart, as I have yours, 
by repressed affection which shows like indifference." 

" I cannot understand you," said Pedro, in be- 
wilderment. " Is it possible," he added, with a sud- 
den perception of the truth, " that you have taken the 
vows your costume would indicate. You once wore 
the garb of a Tertiary — " 

'' But now that of a consecrated follower of Saint 
Francis," continued Colon. "At present, Pedro, I 
cannot openly declare it, for I am in the king's ser- 
vice, and subject to conditions which interfere with 
a formal profession ; but the vow is none the less 
binding." 

"Why have you done this?" cried Pedro. "It 
will kill my sister." 

Colon grew pale. " The vow was taken in a mo- 
ment of great peril, when we were in danger of ship- 
wreck, and no other promised penance availed," he 
said. " My life was at stake ; and more than that, 
the success of my life-long work — " 

" What is that, compared with your duty as a 
man?" interrupted Pedro, white with anger. "My 
14 



210 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

sister placed her happiness in your hands, and you 
basely sacrifice it to preserve your life. Better that 
you were sunk in the depths of the ocean — " 

The curtain was parted ; and Juan Perez, the gray- 
haired Franciscan who had admitted Pedro, strode 
into the room, with an uplifted hand. 

*' Stop, impious youth ! " he cried in a voice of com- 
mand. " Dare not to impeach with guilt the chosen 
of Heaven. Look abroad through Barcelona to-day, 
and you will see the value put upon the life which you 
count as of less worth than a woman's contentment. 
Hearts must bleed when death severs the ties of love 
or kindred. Let one suffer, if need be, that a world 
may rejoice. Cristoval Colon is the messenger of the 
Lord to bear his name among the heathen, — to con- 
vert a world lying in darkness to the knowledge of the 
truth. Shall such a man be subject to the ordinary laws 
of frail humanity? Must he be bound by any ties but 
those of spiritual service, — the easy yoke and the 
light burden of the Lord? Your sister is a worthy 
woman, whom all praise for beauty and modesty. Let 
her rejoice that she is found worthy to suffer for the 
cause of humanity and the triumph of the Cross. Let 
her think of her husband as one dead, yet raised by 
a miracle to a new life, which is given in answer to 
his vows. Thus shall she share in the rejoicing of the 
Christian world. The Pope, the kings of the earth, 
and all princes unite to-day in giving glory to God, 
and praise to his servant Cristoval Colon. Will you 
alone vex his noble spirit with unjust blame? " 

Pedro was moved, in spite of himself, by this ap- 
peal. He could not forget the gorgeous pageant of 
the day, and the great honors paid to the Admiral by 



THE TRIUMPH, 21 1 

the king and queen. He was silenced by a sense of 
his own insignificance ; yet his indignation was not 
lessened. Certain fundamental principles of justice 
had been violated, it seemed to him. A law of hu- 
manity had been broken. The subtleties of argu- 
ment which appeared so unanswerable to Friar Perez, 
and to which Colon turned for consolation and de- 
fence, were to him no more than idle words. He 
sighed, and twirled his hat in his hands. 

" I must go with this for an answer, then," he 
said. " I know not how I shall meet my sister with 
the tidings." 

"■ She knows my decision," said Colon. '* I have 
written to her." 

" Then she has already felt the blow," said Pedro ; 
" and added to this is the death of our father, and 
the possible loss of our brother Diego, whom you left 
among the savages. How can a tender woman sur- 
vive all this? I shall look to find her in her coffin ; 
and were that the case, doubtless your friend the friar 
here would assure me that we should rejoice in her 
martyrdom, which has ministered to your fame." 

" Thou art angry, Pedro," said Colon, kindly, with 
the old affectionate manner of address, laying his hand 
upon the young man's shoulder. " Dost thou not 
credit me with human feelings? Dost thou not know 
that my heart is torn with grief ? I must take up my 
cross and bear it. Beatriz Enriquez must do the 
same. But tell her for me, Pedro, that above ambi- 
tion, above the hope even of the rescue of the Sep- 
ulchre, far above all earthly glory, I cherish the ex- 
pectation of that moment when, the sorrows of earth 
being ended, I shall meet with her in Paradise." 



212 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

He turned away with tears running down his cheeks. 

Tears rose also in Pedro's eyes. 

'' I will tell her this," he said. *' Farewell." 
Friar Perez conducted him into the outer hall, and 

parted from him with a silent gesture of dismissal. 

The moon rode in splendor through fleecy clouds. 

The stars were bright points in the deep blue sky. 

Pedro clinched his fist and shook it above his head, 

as if accusing their immovable serenity. After 

a sleepless night, he started at early dawn for 

Cordova. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

A MESSAGE. 

BEATRIZ'S delight at the arrival of her favorite 
brother was the first reUef to her sorrow. Pedro 
held her in his arms, and kissed her with such sym- 
pathetic tenderness that Beatriz, laying her head upon 
his shoulder, burst into tears. The weeping relieved 
the tension of her feelings. She looked up with a 

smile. 

'* Thou art as ever an angel," said Pedro. " Come 
with me for a walk in the garden." 

Little Fernando ran after them, with a whoop and 
halloo. Pedro caught him with pretended violence, 
kissed him, and set him down, rolling him over and 
over on the grass. 

" Run and play with thy bow and arrow while I 
talk to thy mother," he said; " then I will come and 
show thee how we shoot at a target at Salamanca." 

He took his sister's arm, and led her to a retired 
seat in the shade. Fernando marched up and down 
the garden alleys, now and then casting a wistful 
crlance at his tall uncle, whose command he did not 
dare to disobey. ^^ 

" Thy child is left to be a comfort to thee," said 
Pedro, speaking as his thought prompted him. 

'' He is a lovely boy," said Beatriz, " noble and 
generous, affectionate and brave. He is the sunshine 



214 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

of my life ; but before long I am to send him to Friar 
Perez at Palos, where he is to meet his father and 
take farewell of him. Later the queen has offered 
to receive him into her household, and I must let 
him go." 

Beatriz spoke quietly ; but Pedro looked at her with 
such an intensity of pity in his expression that her lip 
quivered, and she turned her head away. 

" A curse on the meddling monks ! " exclaimed 
Pedro, with apparent irrelevancy. " I hope they will 
not make a whining friar of the boy." 

" As a page in her Highness's household, I hope 
he will grow up to be a noble gentleman," said 
Beatriz, " worthy to share with the good Diego his 
father's legacy of honorable titles and emoluments. 
But tell me, Pedro, what news dost thou bring from 
Barcelona? " 

Her question and her anxious look implied a hun- 
dred urgent inquiries which she hesitated to utter. 

*' I saw Colon, and spoke with him," said Pedro. 

Beatriz changed color. " Tell me all," she said, — 
" what he spoke, how he looked. I wish to picture 
it to myself as if I had been there." 

" Thou shouldst have been there, seated near the 
queen, under the golden canopy," said Pedro, vehe- 
mently ; " thou shouldst have shared his triumph, as 
thou hast shared his struggles and his poverty." 

Beatriz made a deprecating gesture. 

" I will tell thee all just as I saw it," said Pedro, 
swallowing his wrath ; and he described minutely the 
entrance into Barcelona, the reception accorded to 
the Admiral, and the honors which were paid him 
by the sovereigns. 



A MESSAGE. 215 

" Such a triumph was never seen before," he 
added. " No conqueror of a kingdom, no hero 
of battle, was ever welcomed with such an outburst 
of enthusiastic exultation. From the king to the 
meanest peasant, all unite in praising him and giving 
him honor." 

Beatriz's eyes shone with pleasure, and she smiled 
proudly. " He is worthy of it," she said. " No 
man ever lived before who was so inspired by devo- 
tion to the service of Heaven and of mankind, and 
so nobly indifferent to his own gain or glory, except 
so far as it advances the glory of God." 

" Or so indifferent to the wounds he inflicts upon 
those who love him," added Pedro. 

"What dost thou mean?" exclaimed Beatriz, her 
smile changing to a look of pain. 

Pedro's fingers worked nervously. 

" I found him in the dress of a barefooted Fran- 
ciscan," he said. " I surprised from him a con- 
fession of the secret which concerns his vow and 
which wrecks thy happiness. I reproached him for 
his conduct toward thee ; and a friar who is his friend 
stunned me with a torrent of eloquence, to prove how 
happy thou shouldst be to suffer a grief inflicted by the 
hand of so great a man. After this all that remained 
for me was to say farewell; but before I left him, 
Colon had the grace to weep. Some pang of con- 
science touched him ; and he sent thee a message 
of sympathy for the loss of thy father, and another 
that I will repeat word for word. * Tell her,' he 
said, * that above ambition, above the hope even 
of the rescue of the Sepulchre, far above all earthly 
glory, I cherish the expectation of that moment 



2l6 COLUMBUS AISFD BEATRIZ. 

when, the sorrows of earth being ended, I shall meet 
with her in Paradise.' " 

Beatriz buried her face in her hands and remained 
silent; while Pedro, with a face full of concern, 
watched her, without daring to intrude upon her 
emotion by a word. At last she lifted her head with 
a look of noble resignation. 

" God bless thee, Pedro, for delivering to me the 
words I was longing to hear," she said. " He loves 
me ; he will never forget me ; I must be content." 

Fernando, who had approached by degrees, now 
ran forward. 

" I have waited too long," he said. " I think that 
I can shoot already quite as well as they do at Sala- 
manca. My father taught me how, long before he 
went away ; and when I go to Palos, I am going to 
beg him to take me with him to shoot the Indians." 

Pedro laughed, and began to construct a target 
for his nephew's amusement, while the rest of the 
family gathered in the garden to hear Pedro's account 
of the great day at Barcelona. Beatriz escaped to 
her room. 

Little by little the household of Rodrigo regained 
its accustomed cheerfulness. Don Fernando's death 
and Diego de Arana's indefinite absence having be- 
come familiar facts, had lost their power to cause 
more than a passing sigh. The two young men, 
Pedro and his nephew Juan, filled the house with 
gayety ; and Anna, Juan's betrothed, — a beautiful, 
lively girl, — brought sunshine with her visits, and oc- 
cupied Antonia's mind with congenial subjects for 
reflection by asking her advice concerning her bridal 
outfit. She was an orphan, a rich ward of Don 



A MESSAGE. 217 

Alonzo Aguilar. The connection was one that would 
advance the family. 

Beatriz endeavored not to cloud the happiness 
of others by an outward show of grief. The por- 
trait of her husband hung in a recess of her room 
carefully protected by silken curtains. When alone 
she would seat herself before the portrait, and re- 
main for hours sunk in a melancholy revery, study- 
ing its features. Then she would rise and go 
about her household duties, or attend to the di- 
rection of the children's studies with energy and 
cheerfulness. 

The gay young Anna regarded her with a sort 
of awe mingled with affectionate admiration. It had 
become the general opinion that the Admiral, spoiled 
by good fortune, had deserted his wife, whom, An- 
tonia maintained, he had married only to advance 
his ambition. Since no defence of his conduct was 
offered, this story was accepted, and Beatriz became 
the object of universal pity. It was a matter of com- 
ment, however, that she bore her grief with the proud 
serenity becoming her noble birth. No one could 
detect a trace of repining or a tone of accusation 
in her manner when she mentioned her husband. 
She seemed to have sunk her individuality in an 
unselfish sympathy with his success, and to look for 
no other happiness than this, and that which she 
enjoyed in her child. 

Her influence with the boys, Fernando and Diego, 
was that of a mother and an admired and beloved 
friend. They learned from her at once a gentle 
tenderness and a fearless rectitude. Fernando was 
too young to feel the enthusiastic love for his mother 



2l8 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

which made his half-brother Diego join the thought 
of her with his mental image of the Virgin ; and 
when the time of parting came, it was Diego who lay 
awake at night, anticipating its grief by drenching his 
pillow with tears. 

The good friar Sanchez came from Palos at the 
appointed time to conduct the boys to their last 
meeting with their father before he sailed on his 
second voyage. Friar Sanchez gave a surprising 
account of the greatness of the fleet which was to 
sail for the new world. Instead of the little " Santa 
Maria," the Admiral had now a large carack for his 
flagship, bearing the name of the "Gracious Mary; " 
and two other caracks and fourteen caravels were 
under his command. 

"The Admiral has taken the Blessed Virgin, the 
patroness of our convent of La Rabida, to be also 
the patroness of his expedition," said Friar Sanchez, 
" and he has promised to dedicate to her all the 
lands he shall newly discover. The godly zeal of the 
man is amazing. One would think he was wholly 
occupied with heavenly meditations, yet no one has 
so wise and practical a mind. He forgets nothing, 
omits nothing. If he had the sole guidance of affairs, 
I believe he could superintend all better than those 
who are appointed under him to render him assist- 
ance. The queen has the utmost confidence in him. 
She treats him as a friend. She will have all done 
to please him, and as he shall order." 

Beatriz was never weary of listening to praises of 
her husband ; and Fernando and Diego were de- 
lighted to think that they should see with their own 
eyes this grand armament, and the horses and sol- 



A MESSAGE. 219 

diers, the priests, artisans, and gentlemen, who were 
to go on board. This feeling helped them to bear 
the parting with fortitude. Their mother assured 
them that they should soon return to her, and 
charged them to bring her back a minute account 
of everything that happened. 

The night before they left, Beatriz spent in de- 
bating what message she should send her husband. 
She wished it to be a greeting which should cheer 
his heart ; but in the solitude of the night, and the 
anxiety of her first parting with her child, a rush 
of selfish sorrow overpowered her. Her cheerful 
patience was, for the time, at an end. She wondered 
how she could bear the weary days and years which 
were to come, with nothing to look forward to but 
the vague hope of the conscious renewal of a broken 
tie in the mysterious world of the dead. There was 
little in the prospect to cheer a heart hungering for 
human companionship and sympathy. It seemed a 
cruel thing that she was not permitted to go with 
the boys to Palos for a last word and look; that 
she was so entirely thrust aside in every calcula- 
tion concerning the Admiral's affairs. Did no one 
remember that, seven years before, the obscure 
chart-maker had wedded the beautiful daughter 
of the noble house of Arana, causing a nine 
days' wonder that his bride had so condescended 
in her choice? 

Beatriz still wore the Psyche ring. She took it 
off now, and held it in her hand while she reviewed 
the events of her wedded life, — the brief seasons of 
happy, united home life, and the long, painful, oft- 
recurring partings, each of which had seemed more 



220 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

cruel than the last ; the days when the young bride 
sat alone while the bridegroom was lodged in the 
convent of St. Stephen's, pleading his cause before 
the learned doctors of Salamanca; the weary time 
of pain and danger when the young mother was left 
to greet her new-born infant with a regret that his 
father was not near to receive him in his arms ; the 
anxious days when the army at Baza were reported 
destroyed by the floods, when every footstep seemed 
to announce a messenger of evil, when the sight of 
her child tortured her with the fear that he might 
be fatherless ; then this climax of evil, this incredible 
sorrow of a parting without a farewell. 

" It is strange what pain the heart can bear 
without breaking," thought Beatriz. " Don Gar- 
cia too well interpreted the design of this ring, 
too well invented — if he did invent — that fatal 
prophecy." 

Following a sudden impulse, Beatriz wrapped the 
ring in tissue paper, placed it in a tiny casket, and 
added the following note : — 

I thank thee, my husband, for thy messages brought 
by Pedro. Never shall I relinquish my right as thy 
wife ; but I will patiently abide thy decision, since I owe 
thee obedience. Do not doubt my love, since it is able 
to survive this cruel test. I love thee above all else, and 
thou canst not so injure me that I can wish thee aught 
but good. I will work ceaselessly for thine advantage. 
Wear this ring, I pray thee, in memory of the tears thou 
hast caused me to shed. If thou shouldst wish them to 
cease, send it again to me for a token ; and if living, 
I will come to thee. 

Beatriz. 



A MESSAGE. 221 

At the moment of parting Beatriz regretted the 
reproach contained in her letter ; but it was too late 
to recall it. The travellers were ready for the start, 
and the casket was packed in the depths of Diego's 
alforjas. So she gave a last kiss to Fernando, who sat 
full of importance before Friar Sanchez on the horse 
that had been sent to carry him to Palos, and she 
said to him, " Tell thy father, Fernando, that I send 
him, through thee, this kiss as a token of my love 
and forgiveness." 

When Fernando ran into his father's arms at Palos, 
he remembered these words, and cried out, "You 
have kissed me on my lips just where my mother did, 
and she said it was a kiss she sent you to show that 
she forgave you." 

Then Diego presented the letter he was charged 
with, and Colon understood the tender generosity 
which prompted this later message. He slipped 
the ring upon his finger, and looked at it with mois- 
tened eyes, remembering the happy hour of his be- 
trothal, when he had given it to Beatriz. He wrote 
an answer to the letter, which he confided to the 
faithful Diego, to be delivered upon his return. 
The letter ran : — 

Dear Friend, — I shall wear the ring you send me 
as part of my penance, the more wilHngly because it is 
imposed by you. The kiss we have exchanged through 
the medium of our child has thereby acquired, as it were, 
a spiritual form, and is a fit token of our new relation- 
ship, which is no less than the old sublimed to an ethereal 
perfection. So far as you can grasp this truth by patient 
acceptance of the divine will, you will be to me, though 
parted by time and space, a help-meet for my soul. I 



2 22 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

thank you that you do not add to my trial the pain of 
your reproaches. It is but a new proof of the generous 
affection that you have ever shown me ; and it encourages 
me to believe that the fulness of God's blessing will 
sanctify to you, as to me, the years that are to come : 
leading us by a way that we know not to the eternal rest 
and rapture of the saints. 



CHAPTER XXII. 

PLOT AND COUNTERPLOT. 

GARCIA DE SILVA had gained from his last 
conversation with Beatriz an added motive to 
revenge himself upon her husband. His hatred of 
the Genoese had now become an imperative motive 
of action, since the success of Colon had made him 
an object of envy. Garcia himself had not risen to 
distinction in his new calling. He had been em- 
ployed as a secret agent of the Inquisition in services 
from which a more scrupulous man would have shrunk, 
and he was treated in some quarters with a deference 
which was founded upon fear. He was believed to 
be a dangerous man, whose friendship even was to be 
avoided. Rumors of his dissolute life offended the 
strict members of his order, and those who might in- 
wardly be willing to condone his faults wished to gain 
credit for themselves by denouncing him. 

At last he gained the notice of the Archdeacon of 
Seville, Don Juan de Fonseca, — a man to whom the 
favor of King Ferdinand had lately given the office of 
Director of the Marine, and who enjoyed through the 
royal gift the benefices of several episcopal sees in 
succession, while he remained a bishop only in name. 
He lived in princely state in his palace in Seville, 
where he dispensed patronage and wielded arbitrary 



224 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

power among the train of satellites who surrounded 
him. Friar Garcia obtained the vacant place of 
secretary to this great man, and it was not long be- 
fore an intuitive sympathy taught Fonseca that the 
young Dominican was a man after his own heart. He 
united unscrupulous daring with a studied subservience 
to the will of the archdeacon ; and by employing a 
judicious mixture of flattery and audacity, he gained 
the indulgent good-will of Fonseca, and became his 
patron's indispensable agent and confidential adviser. 

The Director of the Marine had the charge of all 
matters concerning the fitting out of the fleet at 
Palos ; and it was not by chance that Garcia had 
striven to gain the position which gave him a hand in 
directing affairs so important to the prospects of the 
Genoese. Fonseca, like most tyrants, was lacking in 
sensitive perceptions. He did not imagine that it was 
from his secretary that he had first acquired a prejudice 
against the Admiral. It was natural that a man high in 
favor with the king should look with suspicion upon an- 
other who had reached at a bound a place next to roy- 
alty itself, — one for whom the rank of Viceroy had 
been created and made perpetually hereditary among 
his descendants, — giving the sons of a foreigner pre- 
cedence over the ancient families of Castile and Ara- 
gon. Fonseca's arrogant and self-seeking nature took 
alarm, and the whispered suggestions of his secretary 
were hardly distinguished from the natural promptings 
of his own indignation at the low-born upstart who 
had outstripped him so early in the race, but whose 
downfall the archdeacon promised himself should be 
no less sudden than his elevation. 

Garcia was willing that Fonseca should be his un- 



PLOT AND COUNTERPLOT. 225 

conscious agent, since in no other way could he so 
easily secure the power to injure his innocent enemy ; 
and chance favored him by adding to Fonseca's nat- 
ural malignity the motive of a dishonest contractor's 
greedy rapacity. 

All the supplies for the voyage and for the settle- 
ment in the new country passed through the Director's 
hands, and nothing reached its destination in the con- 
dition intended by the generous queen. The fine 
Andalusian horses that had been each one chosen 
and tried under the Admiral's eye, were turned into 
the stables of the archdeacon, and their place suppHed 
by inferior ones. Provisions and drugs, the stores 
and implements for the new colony, chosen with care 
by the queen's orders, were tampered with in a simi- 
lar way. Fonseca's extravagant expenditures had left 
his exchequer in need of replenishing, and such an 
opportunity of turning his office to account could not 
have been neglected, had he no personal grudge 
against the leader of the expedition. As it was, the 
injury that he did the Admiral intensified Fonseca's 
dislike to his victim. From this time the archdeacon 
and his creatures began the persecution of Colon 
which wrecked his hopes, frustrated his well-laid 
plans, brought distress and disaster upon the settle- 
ments he founded, introduced treachery, discontent, 
and insubordination into a soil only too ready to 
breed them, and culminated in the insults, slanders, 
and personal indignities which made his later years 
one long martyrdom. 

Opposed to this powerful and successful coalition 
of evil minds, united by ties of selfish interest, and 
secretly sustained by the sympathy and favor of the 
15 



226 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

king, the friends of the absent Admiral were few and 
weak. The noble Isabella was his warm ally ; but 
her generous nature could not in the end succeed in 
opposing the cold and crafty king. Many of her at- 
tendants shared her sympathy for the Genoese ; and 
one of these, Dona Juana de la Torre, the foster nurse 
of Prince Juan, became especially interested in him 
through his two young sons, who had been made pages 
in the queen's household. 

The Admiral had sailed on his second voyage when 
his brother Bartholomew, returning in haste from Eng- 
land with a favorable message from Henry VII., 
found that he was too late with his good news, — 
that the new world had been discovered, and that 
Spain and not England was the gainer. Bartholomew 
made his way to Cordova to visit his sister-in-law, 
and at her request he took his nephews to court, 
in obedience to a renewed oifer from the queen to 
receive them. 

Beatriz, having steeled herself to endure the parting 
with Fernando, hastened it at the last, wishing the 
sooner to carry out a resolution which she and Diego 
had taken together. This was the counter conspiracy 
to the plots of Fonseca and his colleagues. It was 
agreed to beneath the trees of the garden the evening 
before the boys' departure for the court at Burgos. 

" My Fernando is too young for care," said Beatriz, 
as she sat in confidential talk with Diego. " I will 
not burden his childish heart with aught but the sim- 
ple precept, * Love God, and do thy duty to the 
queen ; ' but thou, Diego, art my trusty knight, who 
will do battle for me if need be." Diego pressed her 
hand. " I in Cordova, and thou in Burgos, must 



PLOT AND COUNTERPLOT. 227 

plan to aid thy father, who is far away under strange 
skies, surrounded with peril and beset with difficul- 
ties. He will be assailed by secret enemies at home, 
who envy a great man's reputation, and seek to injure 
it by their malice. The queen is his friend ; but the 
absent are always in the wrong. She does not know 
his virtues as we do, and might come in time to doubt 
him. Thou must work for him at court, Diego. Find 
some noble lady who has access to the queen and 
enjoys her confidence. Endeavor to win her favor 
for thyself and thy brother, by deserving well. Let 
thy conduct be as irreproachable as shall suit the 
champion of thy father's fame, and add to this the 
gentle graces that will commend thee to special no- 
tice. Having won her good-will, beseech her aid and 
influence for thy father. Do not weary her with sup- 
plications, but use diplomacy to present them when 
occasion serves. The dropping of water will wear a 
stone, and a word let fall now and then has more effect 
than thou canst tell. Write me everything thou canst 
discover concerning thy father. Keep thine eyes and 
ears alert, but give no confidence to any one save me. 
Dost thou understand? " 

Diego nodded. 

'' I will do it gladly," he said. " I would do any- 
thing to please you and to serve my father." 

It was in consequence of this suggestion that Diego 
selected the noble Dona de la Torre to be the object 
of his interested attentions. The young prince loved 
her dearly, and she was a favorite with his compan- 
ions. The two handsome sons of the much-talked-of 
Admiral were noticeable objects in the society of the 
court. Fernando 's extreme youth made him a gen- 



228 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

eral favorite, and Diego's manly courtesy won every 
heart. 

Beatriz had received from her husband, together 
with his farewell greetings, and the letter Diego had 
brought, a large sum of money, part of the amount 
allowed him by the queen as the first payment of his 
annuity. She determined to make this the nucleus of 
a fund which would enable her to employ trusty mes- 
sengers and agents for her correspondence with Diego, 

Beatriz wore her husband's last letter upon her 
heart. It consecrated her life as something still of 
worth to him. A less noble nature would have failed 
to find consolation in accepting the abstract relation- 
ship he proposed for the future ; but Beatriz, while 
relinquishing every hope of personal happiness, was 
sustained by the consciousness that a bond of sym- 
pathy still existed between them which could not be 
broken. Pity for her husband's loneliness kept her 
from dwelling upon her own loss. For his sake she 
took a new interest in the society that frequented 
Rodrigo's house. She was eager to learn the secrets 
of politics, the news of the court, everything that 
might remotely bear upon the future of Spain's Admi- 
ral and Viceroy. She wished to strengthen his posi- 
tion, to win friends for him and for his sons, and to 
aid him to perpetuate the glory he had won for his 
name, to the remotest generations. 

Antonio Geraldini was the friend in whom she re- 
posed the greatest confidence. The romantic events 
of Beatriz's life had interested him from the first. 
Her position now seemed to him unique, and full of 
pathos. Although the secret of Colon's vow had 
never been divulged, his friends had a very correct 



PLOT AND COUNTERPLOT. 229 

intimation of the motive which had caused him to 
abandon so lovely a wife. Pedro had taken pains 
that this idea should prevail, although he did not 
commit himself to any definite statement, for he felt 
that the anomalous position in which his sister was 
placed required explanation. All who knew Colon 
well were acquainted with the strength of his religious 
fervor, which was the most striking feature of his char- 
acter. The age in which he lived, though not as 
deeply imbued with the spirit of monasticism as the 
century or two preceding, was still fully in sympathy 
with its ideals. It did not surprise Geraldini, himself 
a prelate of the church, that the enthusiastic Genoese 
should enter a religious order; but he wondered at 
the intensity of the conviction which had enabled him 
to make so great a sacrifice. He did not agree with 
those who maintained that the Admiral was a cold- 
hearted, ambitious man, caring only for his own 
advancement. 

"You misjudge him and the tragic beauty of his 
deed," he said in reply. " Iphigenia immolated by 
her father's decision, Isaac sacrificed at the command 
of God, — these are images no more sublime than love 
slain by the hand of love." 

The first vessel that returned from the new world 
was eagerly looked for, but it brought the tidings of a 
new sorrow to the family of Enriquez. The noble 
young Diego de Arana had been massacred in an up- 
rising of the natives, in which every Spaniard left be- 
hind in the island of Hispaniola had perished, and the 
settlement had been destroyed. The silence of ruin 
and desolation had greeted the Admiral when he re- 
turned full of hope, with new supplies for his colony. 



230 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

Colon wrote a letter to Beatriz, expressing his sympa- 
thy for herself and her family, and giving the details 
of the disaster as he had been able to collect them. 

" Would we had never met this Colon ! " exclaimed 
Antonia. "He has brought nothing but grief and 
misfortune upon us, and so it will be to the end." 

This first of a long series of evils was deeply regretted 
by all interested in the future of Spain's colonies in 
the Indies. Fonseca, and the employes of the Bureau 
in Seville, alone took a malignant pleasure in begin- 
ning the oft-repeated cry of the Admiral's incapacity 
as an administrator of practical affairs. The ven- 
geance which the license and cruelty of the Spaniards 
had at last provoked from the long-suffering natives 
was regarded as something which the Admiral might 
have provided against. The gentle queen wept for 
the fate of Diego de Arana, who had alone remained 
faithful to the duty intrusted to him, though powerless 
to restrain the excesses of his companions. 

Beatriz was full of anxiety for her husband in 
the critical situation of affairs which met him in 
Hispaniola. 

" A man of absolute virtue is at a disadvantage in 
the life of this world," said Geraldini to her one day 
when she expressed this feeling. " He lives under 
the favor of Heaven, which blesses his inner being 
with the sweetest consolations, and sustains him in 
trials beneath which others would sink helpless ; but 
trials come more rather than less often to him. He 
has none of that armor of callous indifference with 
which the hard-hearted and the cruel are protected. 
Colon is a man endowed with a capacity for suffer- 
ing, — a self-elected martyr. His aims are super- 



PLOT AND COUNTERPLOT. 231 

human, and they imply an endless struggle with the 
conditions of human life. Could he have colonized 
Hispaniola with a legion of angels instead of a rabble 
of dissolute adventurers, our worthy Diego need not 
have perished. It is the element of evil which in- 
troduces an inevitable confusion, since Colon has 
given no place to it in his calculations ; and thus it 
will be, I fear, to the end. Have I saddened you by 
my words? " 

" Life is no longer aught but sadness," said Beatriz. 
" I must face the possibility of suffering for myself 
and for him. But why should the world be so ordered 
that evil triumphs over good? " 

" The wisest doctors of our faith cannot tell us 
that," said Geraldini. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

princes' favor. 

'npHE following extracts are taken from the letters 
•^ of Diego Colon to his stepmother. Written at 
long intervals, they sufficiently explain the events that 
occurred during the time they cover : — 

" Things do not go here at court as we should choose 
for the credit of the one we love. Father Boil has ar- 
rived at Burgos from Hispaniola. He brings with him a 
great train of ragged gentlemen and barefooted friars, all 
of whom are loud in their complaints of the new land, 
which they say is barren of gold, and fertile only in dis- 
ease and disappointment. They pretend that they have 
been driven to return to Spain by the tyranny of my 
father, who is a despot without mercy or justice. My 
blood boils at these calumnies. They say he has forced 
the Indians to cruel labors and excessive tribute, and 
appropriated to himself the gold wrung from them by 
taxes, the proceeds of which belong by right to the 
crown. They show letters written by many who remain 
behind, declaring that they He on beds of sickness, un- 
able to return to the homes they long to reach as a deliv- 
erance from the torment of their hves under a merciless 
tyrant, who has used every means to insult and degrade 
the dignity of the noble gentlemen of Castile, being him- 
self a foreigner, and eager only to enrich himself at the 
expense of others. These lies, being so many in num- 
ber, and agreeing together, and being supported by the 



PRINCES' FAVOR. 233 

authority of Father Boil, — a sour, morose man, who looks 
as if Paradise would not please him, — have won cre- 
dence even from the queen. I said to Dona de la Torre, 
* Can these things be believed against a man of my fa- 
ther's known probity and gentleness, whose services to the 
crown have been so eminent ? ' She answered me with a 
doubtful shake of the head. ' I am loath to believe it,' 
she said ; ' but the Vicar-Apostolic gives his support to 
the testimony of the rest.' The queen is to send ships 
with stores and medicines to the succor of the sick. My 
father was absent from the colony when Father Boil 
sailed, so that I cannot inform you of his health." 

" My uncle Diego has returned to Spain. Now I 
hope ail will be well. He has brought strange plants 
and animals, in which the queen shows great interest ; 
and lumps of gold, and grains of it hke sand. He is 
kind and gentle, and though much younger than my 
father, he has his eyes and smile. Fernando begs him 
to take him back on his ship; and when told that he is 
too young to go, he declares he means to grow old very 
fast, so that he can be always near his father. The 
queen is going to send Juan Aguado back with my uncle 
to inquire into the truth of the slanders concerning my 
father. I hope he will soon put an end to them." 

"I have good news for you, — news to rejoice your 
heart. My father has landed at Cadiz. Aguado, who 
set sail for Spain before him, has reached Burgos. He 
is a traitor. Instead of defending my father, he has let- 
ters and papers on the contrary side. The queen listens 
to his slanders. Once let my father appear, and he will 
silence these evil reports. I can hardly wait for the 
moment when I shall see him again." 

Colon had returned to Spain broken in health and 
harassed with care. He came to justify himself be- 
fore the sovereigns ; but no royal escort awaited the 



234 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

Viceroy of the Indies to conduct him to the court 
which he had left loaded with honors. No notice 
was taken of his arrival, and he made his way to the 
convent of La Rabida, where the faithful Juan Perez 
received him with tender affection. 

The good prior had followed his friend to the In- 
dies, and after experiencing the vicissitudes of life 
under conditions which discouraged the strongest 
faith, he had returned with eagerness to the quiet 
shelter of his convent. He wondered that Colon 
could still persevere with undaunted courage in 
the work he had begun. It seemed to Perez a 
strange contradiction that the innocent life of the 
natives, which Colon had described as resembling 
that of the Garden of Eden before the fall, should 
be changed by the advent of the Christian conquer- 
ors into a dismal slavery; that the happy island, 
which had yielded to them without effort every ne- 
cessary of life, should be drenched with blood, — the 
scene of assassination, treachery, and revolt, — and 
prove a barren desert to the Spaniards, whose greed 
was as insatiable as their lust. 

Colon and Juan Perez sat on the convent roof one 
evening watching the sun sink in the sea, and enjoy- 
ing the cool breeze after the heat of the day. Colon 
once more wore the garb of a Franciscan ; and he 
inwardly resolved that he would never again discard it. 
If the queen believed the accusations made against 
him, if his usefulness were at an end, it was time that 
his vow should be made public, and that he should 
formally enter the brotherhood of La Rabida. Still 
he hesitated to declare his purpose, hoping from day 
to day for a royal message. 



PRINCES' FAVOR. 235 

"All has ended in failure," he said to his friend. 
" The discovery of the new world has brought me no 
nearer to my purpose of ransoming the Sepulchre 
than if that fair land still lay unseen but by the eye 
of faith behind the purple clouds. Gold has been 
obtained, wnmg from the labor of the wretched 
natives ; but it is not enough to satisfy the avarice 
of the king ; and my own share, if it is ever adjudged 
to me, will hardly requite me for the expenses I have 
already borne." 

" I fear," said Friar Perez, " that the blessing of 
God is not on the gold thus gained. My heart is 
heavy when I think of the ruin of that happy 
race." 

Colon rose and paced the enclosed space of the 
roof in agitation. 

"Am I to be blamed?" he asked. "Was any 
other course open to me? All clamored for gold. 
The king would look more coldly on me than at 
present, were my promises quite unfulfilled. It may 
be I was not inspired by Heaven, when I assured 
him so positively that he should possess the treasures 
of the Khan. Could I have reached his kingdom, 
the conquest of one city, the cargo of one of his gal- 
leons, would suffice to answer all our hopes. But can 
we doubt, Friar Perez, that the introduction of our 
holy Gospel will prove a blessing to the Indians 
greater than all earthly bliss, when missionaries, more 
inspired by faith than Father Boil, learn their language, 
and win their confidence? If one soul is saved from 
the torments of hell, will not that more than counter- 
balance the bodily sufferings of hundreds? " 

Colon asked this question, as if his peace of mind 



236 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

depended on the answer. It was one that he had 
debated with himself through weary days and sleep- 
less nights. Perez hesitated. 

** It may be so," he said. " No doubt it must be. 
Yet how can Christianity win their hearts, when it is 
so disgraced by the lives of those who profess it?" 

" I hope for better things in the future," said 
Colon, contented with this reply. ''The light of the 
Gospel cannot be quenched by the powers of evil. 
But the failure that presses upon my heart concerns 
the ransom of the Sepulchre. As thou knowest, I left 
my colony for the space of five months, during which 
I encountered fatigue and peril daily and hourly, 
hoping to carry out my purpose of reaching the Holy 
Land by sea. Many infallible signs persuaded me 
that I had gained the extremity of India. Thence 
to double the Aurea Chersonesus and the peninsula 
of Malaga would bring me to the x'\rabian Sea, whence 
I could enter the Red Sea, and by a land journey 
reach Jerusalem. This was my plan. How, with my 
small company of disheartened and weary mariners, 
I should succeed in taking that holy place, I did not 
stop to consider, being sure that if God led me so 
far, a means would be found and made known to me. 
But tempests pursued me. ' x\ll thy storms and waves 
are passed over me,' I cried with David. My frail 
vessels were the sport of the waves ; and, as if to ren- 
der my scheme fruitless, a strange malady came upon 
me, whether sent by God's command or at the plea- 
sure of the Evil One, I know not. For five days and 
nights I lay in a trance, conscious of what passed about 
me, but unable to give a sign of life. My heart beat, 
but my body was as motionless as a corpse. When 



PRINCES' FAVOR. 237 

I revived, I was once more in my colony, and in the 
arms of my brother Bartholomew. Is this result of 
my voyage a token that the conquest of the holy 
place is not for me?" 

"I know not," answered Perez ; "but, to say truth, 
my heart has never kindled so responsively to thy 
promises of its deliverance as to thy speculations 
concerning the Western land ; but God has led thee 
to one success, and may not deny the other." 

Colon sighed heavily, but remained silent. 

" Didst thou receive no intimation of the divine will 
during thy state of trance? " asked Perez. 

" No," answered Colon. "Nothing came to me, 
but confused and feverish images which I have in 
great measure forgotten. I remember that at one 
time I thought that my wife — I thought that Beatriz 
was with me ; that she kissed me with tears and sobs ; 
that when I attempted to escape her embrace, she re- 
proached me for breaking my vow to her, and declared 
that God's favor had left me from the moment that I 
deserted her." 

" These are the promptings of an unsubdued imagi- 
nation," said Perez, " acting upon thee in thy state of 
weakness and lethargy, when the power of the will was 
in abeyance ; and I would counsel thee to steel thy 
heart against regrets which may wreck thy spiritual 
peace." 

This advice, which was given with decision and 
energy, was humbly received by the Viceroy of the 
Indies, who regarded Friar Perez as his religious 
superior; but its acceptance did not bring peace to 
his mind. On the contrary, the voices from the past 
became more urgent, declaring that he had sacrificed 



238 COLUMBUS AND BEATR/Z. 

love to ambition in vain ; that the vow, taken in the 
presence of his child, was more binding than that 
spoken in a moment of mortal peril, when fear, not 
conscience, was the motive power. 

" Return to thy wife, take up the humble life of 
daily toil, and the simple happiness of a good man's 
home," pleaded the siren whisper. " Thou wentest 
forth armed with thy wife's blessing, and wert led to 
the great discovery. Since thou hast rent asunder the 
holy ties of matrimony, naught but disaster has be- 
fallen. The favor of God fails thee. The Sepulchre 
recedes as thy eager pursuit of it advances. The 
storm that did so terrify thee was sent but as a test 
of thy faith and courage. When it pleased him, God 
would have stilled it without thy vow." 

Not daring to tell Juan Perez of this inner struggle, 
Colon left the convent one night, when all were sleep- 
ing, and for a month was lost to the sight of men. It 
was reported afterward that he had been seen, in the 
garb of a Franciscan friar, in various cities of Spain. 
He had knelt in the church of St. Julian in Seville. 
He had wandered at night through the streets of Cor- 
dova. If the beasts of the wilderness shared with him 
the shelter of their caves, and the lonely soUtudes of 
the mountains were the scenes of fast and vigil, they 
kept the secret. What the conflict was, and how it 
ended, none could guess. 

One morning Colon again presented himself at the 
convent of La Rabida. He was pale, emaciated, and 
weary with travel and the loss of sleep. He gave no 
account of the cause of his absence, but took his old 
part among the brothers in the chapel exercises with 
more than customary ardor of devotion. That same 



PRINCES' FAVOR. 239 

day the long-deferred royal letter arrived. It was 
presented by a royal courier to the long-bearded san- 
dalled Franciscan, who bore the perpetual title of 
Viceroy of the Indies and Admiral of the Ocean Sea. 
The sovereigns congratulated the Admiral on his safe 
return, and invited him, when sufficiently recovered 
from the fatigues of the voyage, to present himself at 
court. 

Colon obeyed the summons without delay. He 
stopped at Seville to prepare himself for his journey ; 
for he never undervalued the effect of pomp and cere- 
mony on suitable occasions, and the punctilious court 
of Spain was particularly sensitive to outward forms. 
The robe of St. Francis was laid aside for splendid 
garments. The beard of the recluse was trimmed to 
a fashionable shape. The Indians who had been lately 
brought to Spain accompanied him, decorated with 
golden ornaments of fabulous worth, and carrying 
offerings of the precious metal to the king and 
queen. 

The effect during his journey and upon his arrival 
at Burgos was what he had hoped for. The old enthu- 
siasm for the man who had aggrandized Spain was 
revived by the magnetism of his personal presence. 
Isabella forgot her suspicions at the first glance at his 
face. His explanations were satisfactory. The bas- 
est treachery had attempted to justify itself by slander- 
ing him. The sorrows he had borne touched Isabella's 
gende heart, and the gold he brought recommended 
him to the king. But when he spoke of a new expe- 
dition, and the necessity for further explorations, he 
was put off with vague promises. 

A royal wedding absorbed the attention of the 



240 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

court. Instead of money for the prosecution of his 
discoveries, Isabella offered him a vast principality in 
Hispaniola, which should constitute an independent 
duchy or marquisate, which might prove in time of 
greater value to his descendants than his hereditary 
emoluments as Admiral and Viceroy. Isabella's gen- 
erous spirit was eager to give a definite and substan- 
tial reward to Colon, and at the same time she 
shrewdly divined the king's growing animosity to the 
foreigner who had become an inconvenient and super- 
fluous factor in the adjustment of affairs. Ferdinand's 
narrow mind could not brook the presence near the 
throne of an independent individuahty. Under the first 
impulse of gratitude he had given unlimited powers to 
the Genoese, and he now longed for an excuse to re- 
trench them. If Colon would accept a duchy in the 
distant colony he had founded, Spain would be well 
rid of him, and her debt to him would be discharged. 
But Colon held himself to be the destined deliverer 
of the Sepulchre, and it was not compatible with his 
future that he should devote himself to the cares 
and duties of a landed proprietor, or become the 
founder of a great estate. He refused the queen's 
offer, though it was repeatedly urged upon him. 

" What I have already won will suffice for my de- 
scendants," said Colon ; " and with your Highnesses' 
permission, I mean to make a solemn act of uiajorat, 
which shall insure the perpetual and unbroken descent 
of my titles and estates." 

The sovereigns consented to this, though Ferdinand 
chafed inwardly at this new indication of the Ad- 
miral's determination never to relinquish the full en- 
joyment of the rights that he had gained. The Bishop 



PRINCES' FAVOR. 241 

Fonseca, who enjoyed the king's confidence, took 
pains to deepen Ferdinand's discontent, ridiculing the 
son of the Genoese wool-comber for his expectation 
of outrivalling the grandees of Spain. 

" Since your Highness has placed the whip in his 
hand, he means to make us feel the lash," said 
Fonseca to the king one day. " When death rids us 
of this intolerable upstart, we are not then to hear the 
last of his claims, for to perpetual generations the free- 
born sons of Aragon and Castile are to yield prece- 
dence to the wool-comber's progeny. His name is to 
be perpetuated, the form of his signature is given the 
value of a royal seal, the vast estates he looks to gain 
in the Indies — our friend Aguado can tell us by what 
means — are to be used to buy the Holy Sepulchre, 
as an appanage, no doubt, to the family estate, and 
his heirs are exhorted to assist the Pope with a sort of 
feudal service. I verily believe he hopes that the suc- 
cession to the Spanish throne may, in some wise, be 
made hereditary in his family." 

Ferdinand laughed, but the jest rankled in his mind. 

" But surely the man is mad," said Juan de Soria, 
one of Fonseca's colleagues, who was present at the 
interview. " It is well known that he has fits of un- 
governable rage ; at other times, hours of moody si- 
lence. That he is not chained in a madman's cell 
surprises those who see him on such occasions. Again 
he will be all deference and courtesy to those whose 
favor he wishes to gain. The Italian has within him 
a sleeping tiger, your Highness. Look that it does 
not rend you ! " 

16 



I 



CHAPTER XXIV. 



THE BOUNDS OF PATIENCE. 



'T^HE two sons of Colon could hardly restrain within 
-■- the bounds required by court etiquette their 
delight at their father's return. The queen, who was 
always eager to promote the happiness of the mem- 
bers of her household, gave the boys permission to 
spend a week with the Admiral in his lodgings in an 
old Moorish house near the walls of Burgos. This 
was a season of delight to Fernando and Diego ; but 
Colon's pleasure was mingled with keen pangs result- 
ing from the conflict of the past and present. Diego, 
who was nearly as tall as his father, and a handsome 
manly youth, had a lofty ideal of womanhood, which 
was embodied equally in the queen and in his step- 
mother ; but it was the latter who held the first place 
in his heart. He told his father without reserve the 
cares which he and Beatriz had shared in regard to 
his welfare. 

"We have worked for you," said Diego; *'but I 
fear we are strong in naught but love. When you are 
here, all goes well ; but enemies are bold when your 
back is turned. You will stay with us now, my father, 
will you not? My mother is lonely without you." 

'* Yes," said Fernando. " She cried when you went 
away ; and when we left to come to Burgos, she only 
smiled, and waved her hand, and threw kisses after 
us!" 



THE BOUNDS OF PATIENCE. 243 

" Couldst thou not understand," said Diego, with 
slight impatience, " that she kept back her tears for 
fear of grieving us? I could see how her lips trem- 
bled. Of course she loves our father best j but thou 
canst not doubt, Fernando, that she grieves to part 
with thee." 

Fernando now looked ready to cry, in spite of his 
eleven years and his office of page. 

" You will go to Cordova soon, will you not, my 
father? " continued Diego. 

" I fear that I cannot," replied Colon. " It would 
be but a new grief to part again." 

He stammered this with a confusion that Diego 
detected with surprise. 

" For reasons that thou canst not understand, it is 
best that I should have no settled home," continued 
Colon, with an effort at composure. " This is a 
subject that pains me ; so let us not recur to it 
again." 

Diego was silenced, and full of amazement. His 
pleasure was clouded for the rest of the day. He no 
longer shared Fernando's games, or took part in his 
joyous conversation with his father. He remained 
apart in melancholy thought. Sometimes Colon 
caught Diego's inquiring look of reproach fixed upon 
him. He regretted that he had given a half con- 
fidence which left room for speculation, and he 
determined that Diego should know all. 

He reached this decision late at night, after hours 
of anxious thought, pacing the garden walks alone in 
the starlight. When he turned to enter the house, he 
noticed a light in Diego's room. He paused to listen 
at the door. Diego heard him and fiung it open. 



244 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

" Is it you, my father? " he exclaimed. 

" Why art thou not in bed? " asked Colon. 

" I cannot sleep ! " said Diego. 

"Thou art thinking of thy mother Beatriz? " said 
Colon. 

Diego nodded. 

Colon seated himself upon the couch, and drew 
Diego to a place beside him. 

"Thou dost think me unjust, cold-hearted, and 
indifferent?" said Colon. 

Diego made no denial. 

" Ungrateful, too ? " continued Colon. " Ah, Diego, 
I have to bear such reproaches from my own heart ! 
The cause of my conduct thou couldst not under- 
stand, for it has been my resolve not to announce as 
yet that I have vowed to enter a convent, and have 
already in secret embraced its rules." 

Diego started. " Does my mother know this? " he 
asked. 

" Yes," was the reply. 

" She is an angel of patience ! " exclaimed Diego, 
impulsively. Then he burst into tears; and with a 
young man's shame of emotion, turned away to hide 
them. 

" What ! Art thou so moved? " exclaimed Colon. 
" It is I who should weep ; but tears are denied me. 
Dost thou blame me, Diego? " 

"Who am I that I should judge you, my father?" 
responded Diego, with a shade of irony in his tone. 

"Thou shouldst be pitiful of the bruised reed," 
said Colon. "I have suffered, Diego." 

"Were you forced to take the vow, my father?" 
asked Diego, in a tone of repressed feeling. 



THE BOUNDS OF PATIENCE. 245 

" Yes," answered Colon, with a weary sigh, as if the 
question opened up a long-debated subject. " It was 
the leading of Providence. I could not escape it ! " 

Diego asked for no further confidence. For the re- 
mainder of the week Colon entered with added zest 
into Fernando's sports. He seemed to desire to live 
only in his child. Diego was cheerful and calm. He 
made no further allusion to th-e home at Cordova. 
Fernando was contented with the present, and, with a 
child's fickleness, forgot to miss his mother. Colon 
wandered with him through the fields and woods, — 
helped him to climb trees, shoot at a mark, run races, 
and trace out the hole of a fox or the burrow of a 
rabbit. In the evenings he would sit under the trees 
of the garden with the boys, and tell them stories of 
the strange new world beyond the ocean. 

The week was over only too soon. Colon was 
plunged again into the cares of the equipment of a 
new voyage, while he had to encounter the almost 
insurmountable obstacles of the queen's preoccupa- 
tion, the king's indifference, and the hostihty of the 
bureau at Seville. More than once he was tempted 
to relinquish the unequal struggle. The reports which 
Fonseca and his friends, and Father Boil and his ad- 
herents had taken pains to circulate concerning the 
miseries of life in the colony, the certainty of death 
by fever and massacre, and the non-existence of gold 
there, had so prejudiced the public mind that no one 
would volunteer to follow the Admiral. The rumors 
of his cruelty and violence of temper, which had 
been industriously circulated of late, were generally 
believed. Since the gentlemen, the artisans, and the 
ecclesiastics deserted him, Colon turned to the crim- 



246 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

inal class for his recruits. The galleys and the prisons 
discharged their inmates on condition of their remain- 
ing a certain length of time in the Indies. It was 
a desperate expedient; but the Admiral hoped that 
self-interest would supply the motive for exertion and 
self-support to the hberated convicts which had been 
lacking with the proud, self-indulgent hidalgos. 

One morning Colon left Seville to escape his anxie- 
ties and recruit his strength by a quiet day and night 
at La Rabida. His difficult task was nearly ended. 
His patience and untiring industry had overcome each 
delay that Fonseca and his agents had contrived. In 
a week's time the fleet would be ready to sail. He 
reached Palos overcome with the fatigue of the jour- 
ney, and he gladly accepted the assistance of the 
young brother who ran with alacrity to help him 
to dismount, giving him in one breath a respect- 
ful greeting and the news that a young nobleman 
from Cordova had arrived that day with a message 
for him. 

The prior, who came to welcome his friend, con- 
firmed the tidings. 

" Pedro de Arana is here," said Friar Perez. " He 
would waste no words on me ; but when I told him 
that thou wert with us usually on the Lord's Day, 
though busied in Seville the greater part of the week, 
he agreed to abide thy coming, and he is strolling 
now on the hill." 

" I will meet him there," said Colon; and refusing 
the rest and refreshment urged upon him by the hos- 
pitable friars, he walked slowly over the uneven ground 
along the ridge of the hill, to a projecting rock where 
the young man was seated. Pedro sprang up at his 



THE BOUNDS OF PATIENCE. 247 

approach, and returned his greeting with formal 
politeness. 

" I am glad that I have found you," he said ; « 1 
knew not where to seek you, — here^^or in Seville. 
I come on a mission from my sister." 

Colon colored quickly, and seating himself upon 
the rock, motioned to Pedro to resume his place. 

*a am weary," he said; "I begin to feel the 
weight of years. What hast thou to tell me from thy 

sister?" j j -i 

Pedro looked at the Admiral's bent head and sli- 
vered hair with the sudden reahzation of the fact that 
Colon was an old man. At the time of her marriage 
it had not occurred to Pedro that his sister was wed- 
ding a man thirty years her senior. It was only of 
late that age had left its imprint on the powerful 
manly frame and handsome oval face of the Genoese. 
The streaks of gray which his hair had early shown 
had seemed the result of intense mental activity. Now 
his thin locks had the peculiar silvery sheen that age 
alone can give. 

Pedro hesitated, for the new idea he had received 
modified his feelings. 

"As you know," he said, "my sister lives only in 
her thought of you. She is ceaselessly occupied in 
your affairs. She keeps paid agents in Seville, Burgos, 
and who knows where, to inform her of everything 
concerning you. She sends me to you now, because 
she believes that you are in danger from your ene- 
mies ; that the malignity of the Bureau of Seville will 
stop at nothing ; that treachery assails you at home, 
and open mahce abroad." 

*•' It is true," answered Colon ; '' but I have no fear. 



248 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ, 

God will protect me. Assure your sister of my grati- 
tude for her solicitude, and my unshaken confidence 
in the power of the Almighty." 

*' She would not receive me if I should return with 
no matter what message," said Pedro. " She has 
said farewell to me, and has sent me as a volunteer 
in your service. If you refuse me, she will be in 
great distress of mind. It was only my promise to 
accompany you on your voyage, and to answer for 
your safety with ray own, which allayed her anxieties. 
Without that, she would have come herself to Palos." 

" Wonderful devotion of a woman's heart ! " ex- 
claimed Colon, much affected ; " and thou, my kind 
Pedro, art worthy of all praise for thy goodness. 
Gladly do I accept thee as a companion of my 
voyage. Thou shalt have the command of a caravel, 
as, long ago, I promised thee." 

Pedro smiled. " How foolish are our childish am- 
bitions ! " he said. "What a strange lack there is in 
their fulfilment ! I thought I was to sail with thee 
straight for the land of the Khan, and bring back my 
vessel laden to the water's edge with gold and jewels. 
Now, if I succeed in protecting you from treachery 
and peril in your own colony, I shall have my hopes 
justified." 

Colon sighed. " All does not fall out to our 
liking," he said ; " God's will is perfect concerning us, 
but the envy and the wrath of men interfere with 
the heavenly purpose. We must steadily pursue our 
course, hoping that righteousness will triumph in the 
end." 

It was a satisfaction to Colon to have the com- 
panionship of his young brother-in-law at this time. 



THE BOUNDS OF PATIENCE. 249 

Pedro had meant to present his sister's cause in a 
different Hght, to reproach Colon with the waste of 
her hfe and the sacrifice of her happiness, and to 
urge him to return to her if only for a farewell. 
The sight of the mild, spiritual face of the old Ad- 
miral, surrounded with a halo of silver hair, the patient 
serenity and calm benignity of his air, had quenched 
the fire and passion of Pedro's intended argument. 
There was something remote and unearthly in the 
atmosphere in which he lived. Pedro recognized for 
the first time the inevitable nature of Beatriz's separa- 
tion from her husband. 

Pedro's outfit was purchased in Seville. A letter 
of farewell was sent full of love to Cordova. The 
Admiral himself attached a postscript breathing grati- 
tude, encouragement, and a paternal tenderness. 

"Our bird once more escapes us," said Juan de 
Soria to Fonseca one day, as he stood at a window 
of the archdeacon's palace watching the loading of 
the last pack-mule with stores for the Indies. " He 
is still powerful enough to carry out his purpose with 
a high hand. Who knows but this voyage will lead 
him to the gold-mines of the Khan? If he returns 
with gold enough, the king will forget all the suspi- 
cions you have so carefully lodged in his mind. The 
queen has declared her distrust of my tale of his vio- 
lent temper. She stakes her royal word that he is a 
man of Christian meekness and forbearance." 

Fonseca knitted his brows fiercely, and looked 
about him, as if searching for a weapon with which 
to attack an enemy. 

" He must be goaded to desperation, as the mata- 



250 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

dors enrage the bull before they slay him," said 
Fonseca. 

Garcia sat writing at a table within hearing of his 
patron. He did not raise his head, but the stopping 
of his pen caused the man who was bending over 
his shoulder to look up and listen. He was a little, 
misshapen Jew, with a cunning, evil face, who had 
advanced himself in the favor of Fonseca, and had 
received baptism and a paymaster's office at the 
hands of his patron. He knew how far he could 
venture with impunity, and leaving the secretary and 
his interrupted accounts, he walked to the window, 
and encountered Fonseca's notice with an awkward 
bow. 

" I overheard your reverence," he said with a leer 
and a smile. " Give me your leave to pique the bull, 
and I warrant I '11 make him roar before the crowd. 
If he does not offer me bodily injury and furious 
abuse before the whole squadron, call me not Ximeno 
Breviesca." 

"And wilt thou offer thy body to the kicks and 
cuffs thou invitest, Ximeno?" asked Juan de Soria, 
smiling. 

" For the sake of my patron, the noble Fonseca, 
I would even encounter the peril of death," said the 
Jew. 

"Thou hast my permission," said Fonseca, shortly; 
" what is thy plan ? " 

" Leave that to me, if you please," said Ximeno. 
" When Spain resounds with the story of my immortal 
drubbing, you will know how to reward me, I hope, 
for my service." 

" Have I ever failed to reward a friend ? " said 



THE BOUNDS OF PATIENCE. 25 1 

Fonseca, with an impatient wave of the hand. He 
scorned the Jew, although he was useful to him, and 
before the Comptroller de Soria he did not care to 
display the intimate familiarity which he allowed him 
in private. 

Ximeno retired again to the table. Garcia looked 

up hastily. 

" On what point wilt thou attack the Admiral? " he 

said. 

" I care not to tell," said Ximeno. 

"He will bear the full measure of every insult 
thou canst contrive," said Garcia. " I would not 
have thee fail ! " 

" Thou art also against him, friar? " said Ximeno. 

" I hate him ! " said Garcia. " Listen to me, 
Ximeno. The Admiral has a wife, — one whom 
he loves, but whom he has deserted, none knows 
why." 

Garcia paused. 

"What else?" asked Ximeno, laying his hand 
heavily on Garcia's shoulder. The secretary shrunk 
from the touch, and rose hastily, gathering his papers 
together. 

"That is all," he said. "I thought thou wert, 
perhaps, ignorant of some parts of the Admiral's 
history." 

Ximeno flashed after him a significant look; but 
Garcia hastened from the room, feeling the pang that 
Judas suffered after he had made the great betrayal. 

The Admiral's squadron lay at anchor in the har- 
bor of Palos. The pennons of his caravels fluttered 
gayly in the breeze. He had risen at early dawn, and 



252 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

had knelt for the last time in worship with the good 
brothers of La Rabida. He had commended himself 
to the especial protection of God and the Virgin in 
his new undertaking. He boarded his vessel with a 
resigned and cheerful heart. All had not gone to his 
liking, but he had in the main succeeded. Who could 
tell but that fortune would turn from this time forth, 
and that his successes and triumphs would outweigh 
the trials he had suffered? The tide was high, and 
his vessel lay close by the quay. The other caravels 
— one of which Pedro commanded — were anchored 
at a little distance, ready to start at the Admiral's 
signal. A crowd of curious but mainly unsympa- 
thetic spectators lined the shore. Through them 
the Jew Ximeno forced his way, with swaggering 
brutality. 

" Let me come at this dog of a Genoese ! " he 
cried, in a loud voice. " I have an account to settle 
with him, and to his face I shall accuse him of theft, 
murder, and lying." 

He was close by the Admiral's side on deck when 
he uttered these words, and rudely stumbled against 
him before he looked up and counterfeited surprise 
at his presence. The crew of bandits and galley- 
slaves were ripe for mutiny, and greeted this en- 
counter with a shout of laughter. Colon cast a 
flashing glance about him ; then turned with a 
majestic gentleness to the Jew. 

" In what way have I offended you ? " he asked, 
" that you so far forget respect for my ofifice and per- 
son? What do you mean by your unwarranted 
accusations? " 

"You know too well why death pursues all who 



THE BOUNDS OF PATIENCE. 253 

oppose your tyranny in Hispaniola?" growled Xi- 
meno. " You know why all grow poor save you, and 
why no gold reaches the treasury of the king. Your 
lies can no longer save you, —all is exposed ! " 

Colon grew pale with anger, but he controlled 
himself. 

"You occupy my time in vain with vague and 
injurious reproaches," he said. " I recognize no 
right on your part to judge my conduct. I am Vice- 
roy of the Indies. I owe allegiance only to my sove- 
reigns ; and they have shown their confidence in me 
by honoring me with a new commission. Time is 
passing. Retire in peace, if you choose, rather than 
to be forcibly ejected." 

'' Thy cut-throat crew dare not touch the servant 
of the Director of the Marine," answered Ximeno ; 
and then he poured forth a torrent of injurious epi- 
thets, which only a scoundrel of his type could invent 
or utter. 

Colon felt that the man was beneath his scorn. 
He trembled with anger ; but he turned his back on 
Ximeno, and was about to retire to his cabin, when 
the Jew, clutching his arm, uttered a new insult loud 
enough for all on board to hear. His evil Hps spoke 
the name of Beatriz Enriquez. 

Colon turned quickly, took a step forward as Xi- 
meno retreated, and struck the Jew a blow with his 
clinched fist full in the face, felling him to the deck. 
The crew applauded, with a new admiration for their 
commander, whose vigorous figure towered in superb 
self-vindication above the prostrate form of his enemy. 
He spurned the howling wretch with his foot, and 
then left him to the jeers of the spectators, who hur- 



254 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

ried him on shore, greeting his swollen and disfigured 
features with shouts of malicious derision. 

Ximeno bore the execration of the witnesses of his 
defeat and the pain of his bruises with inward satis- 
faction, picturing to himself the reception which 
awaited him in Seville. 

The Admiral sailed with a heavy heart, for the 
name of Fonseca had assured him that the insult was 
the result of a deliberate plot to injure his credit too 
late for him to defend himself against the inventions 
of his enemies. 

The conspirators at Seville were overjoyed at the 
success of their agent. Ximeno was loaded with 
rewards. Great pains were taken that the matter 
should reach the ears of the king and queen with 
every exaggeration that malice could devise. The 
paymaster was in his humble way an officer of the 
crown, Fonseca reminded them ; and Ximeno has- 
tened to Burgos to show the visible tokens of bodily 
injury which he had received from the infuriated 
Genoese. 

Isabella was horrified at this unmistakable evi- 
dence of the violence of the man whom she had 
trusted and admired. Father BoiTs stories of 
cruel mismanagement in the colony gained new 
credence. 

When Friar Perez heard the story as it was told at 
Palos, he wrote to his friend, the Admiral, urging him 
to send him a written account of the insult he had 
received, — of whose nature all were ignorant, — so 
that he could publish his defence before the world. 
Colon was too much occupied by the unfortunate 
condition of affairs in the colony to attend to this 



THE BOUNDS OF PA TIE JVC E. 255 

request, the more so that he could not make pubUc 
the nature of the deepest wound he had received. 

" I shall leave my defence in the hands of God," 
he wrote to Juan Perez at a later time. "When 
conscience is at peace, the calumnies of men have 
little power to vex us." 



CHAPTER XXV. 

time's changes. 

T3EATRIZ had made the last sacrifice that re- 
^-^ mained to her when she sent her favorite 
brother to the aid of her husband. She feared for 
him the fate of Diego, yet she had urged him to the 
undertaking ; and when Pedro's decision was made, 
his love for his sister and his willingness to undertake 
a daring adventure supported him in it against the 
combined remonstrances of Rodrigo and his family. 
Since the Admiral's star had begun to wane, many 
friends had deserted him. The king's thinly veiled 
hostility set the fashion for a revision of judgment and 
a return to old hostilities, which the brief popularity 
of the Genoese had never entirely allayed. 

Rodrigo could not forgive him for his desertion of 
his sister, and for his failure to fulfil his golden 
promises. Each was an injury sufficient in itself to 
embitter Rodrigo, and to justify his original prejudice 
against the man whose union with his family had 
brought only disaster upon it. The bitter opposition 
of the elder brother's family included both Pedro and 
Beatriz in its effects. Antonia's vindictive spirit 
widened the breach which was begun by Rodrigo's 
hasty words, and Pedro's reply to them. Beatriz was 
inflexible in her devotion to her husband, and re- 



TIME'S CHANGES. 257 

sented all that was said against him. Pedro left Cor- 
dova to join his brother-in-law ; and Beatriz, finding 
her life in Rodrigo's house insupportable under these 
conditions, returned to the old house in the Court of 
Pomegranates, with a couple of servants and the faith- 
ful Teresa, whose age made her more a burden than 
an assistance. 

It was here that Beatriz received the farewell letter 
from her husband and brother ; and news, through a 
confidential agent, of the unfortunate encounter be- 
tween the Admiral and the Jew Ximeno, — the par- 
ticulars of which were unknown, and only guessed at 
by the Admiral's friends ; while his enemies eagerly 
credited Ximeno's story that it had been an unpro- 
voked assault. 

Beatriz sat on the bench in the long-deserted gar- 
den. Weeds had taken possession here, and grew 
rank, overtopping the flowers. The pomegranate- 
tree was dead and half blown down. The fountain 
within the patio was broken and choked with dead 
leaves, making a mournful trickle across the pave- 
ment, and staining its marble slabs. The birds still 
sang in the heyday of springtide love and joy, flowers 
and weeds were budding and blossoming together ; 
but it seemed to Beatriz that the spring breeze had 
the chill of a tomb upon it. She was alone where 
father, brother, husband, and child had in turn filled 
her life with the joys of responsive affection. All was 
lost to her at an age when resignation does not come, 
as in later life, with slackening pulses and lessening 
powers. She walked about in the little garden as if 
chafing at its narrow limits. Life was cruel ; her 
heart cried out against its pain. 
17 



258 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

Teresa brought her supper to her on a tray. The 
old servant's eyes were swollen with weeping. She 
set the tray down in obedience to her mistress's 
gesture. She tried to speak calmly; but she burst 
into tears. 

*' It will kill you here, Seiiora," she said. "You 
know well that you cannot live here alone. I went 
to set your single cup and plate in the dining-hall. 
It would not do. I remembered how you had sat 
there at your wedding- feast when the room was full 
of guests and laughter. Then I carried them into 
the study of Don Enriquez : dust, rats, and spiders 
were there. In your chamber was the child's empty 
cradle — " 

" Hush ! " said Beatriz, turning quickly. " We 
must live here. Set the maids to work, and a man 
to mend the fountain and weed the garden. Change 
all thou canst." 

The house was renovated and set in order. All of 
the past that lingered there was ruthlessly excluded. 
In Beatriz's chamber the rich furniture, carpets, and 
hangings were replaced by the bare floor and simple 
furnishings of a convent cell, — a pallet, chair, and 
table, and the Admiral's portrait as sole ornament upon 
the wall opposite her crucifix. 

Teresa watched these changes with dismay. 

" Are you going to become a nun? " she asked her 
mistress. 

" The outer must conform to the inner hence- 
forth," said Beatriz; "and peace must be sought by 
prayer." 

" Our Lady defend us ! " exclaimed Teresa, almost 
in tears. " It is a sin and a shame that your beauty 



TIME'S CHANGES. 259 

should be buried here as in a tomb. If the worst 
must happen, why not take the vows of a rehgious 
before the whole of Cordova? I warrant the queen 
herself would come to see the sight. You might be 
made a prioress, and snap your fingers at the Admiral 
and his titles." 

" I shall never take a vow contrary to that which I 
made at the altar when I married," said Beatriz. 
" Naught but death should break that tie." 

" Yet men break it at pleasure," said Teresa. "■ The 
Admiral's greatness can never keep me from saying 
that he has used you cruelly, not even having the ex- 
cuse of ever having looked upon a woman in all Spain 
but you." 

" Be silent ! " commanded Beatriz. " He is as far 
above thy judgment as the sun that dazzles our eyes 
at midday when we attempt to question its size or 
shape. Speak of my husband with respect, or never 
mention his name." 

Teresa departed weeping, and bemoaning her hard 
fate and that of her mistress. Beatriz attempted to 
win by prayers and vigils and cruel fasts the heavenly 
consolations which her husband had found ; but al- 
though she grew pale and hollow-eyed, she found no 
peace. Then she determined that an interest outside 
of self was necessary to her health of mind. She 
filled the house with the sick poor of the city who 
were unable to find shelter in the hospital. She 
tended them with her own hands, spending day and 
night in their service, and only sleeping when ex- 
hausted by fatigue. 

Teresa's life was a mute protest. She had long 
since found that words were unavailing. Rodrigo 



26o COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

came to reproach his sister for her eccentric folly, 
which he told her was the talk of the town. His 
advice was what Teresa's had been. 

" If thou dost wish to win reputation as a saint," 
said Rodrigo, "do it as the Church commands. 
Make thyself distinguished among the holy women of 
some powerful order. Thou mightest come to the 
notice of the queen." 

" I have no ambition for myself," said Beatriz. 
" Teach me to forget, Rodrigo, and I will obey thee. 
This work wearies the body, and consoles the mind." 

" If thine allowance and thy husband's gifts suffice, 
go on with it," said Rodrigo, angrily. '' Come not 
to me for help. I forbade the marriage which has 
made thy misery." 

" I ask no help, Rodrigo," said Beatriz, " though I 
would gladly have a fortune to spend for a great hos- 
pital for all the sick and poor. As for my misery, it 
is my rebellious heart that causes it by refusing to 
learn patience." 

" First learn obedience to thine elders," said 
Rodrigo ; and he left in anger. 

The gentle Anna, young Juan's wife, next tried her 
persuasions. She was fond of Beatriz, and shocked 
to see the change in her looks. 

" Mi cara Tia,'' she said, " you must look in your 
mirror^ and you will believe all that my father-in-law 
tells you. You are still beautiful, but not, as hitherto, 
the most beautiful. You will lose your claim to the 
admiration of Cordova, if you thus neglect yourself. 
Your husband will not know you." 

Beatriz took Anna's hand, and held it against her 
heart. 



TIME'S CHANGES. 261 

" My dear Anna," she said, " thou hast touched 
the sore spot. My husband will never care again 
whether I am beautiful or no. That is why I give no 
heed to my mirror." 

The mournful droop of her mouth, and the falling 
of the long lashes over her white cheeks seemed inex- 
pressibly sad to Anna. She jumped up, and walked 
about, looking at Beatriz. Then she stood still, and 
extended her arms, clinching her little fists. 

'' If I were a man, I should strangle the Admiral," 
she said, her voice breaking into a sob that was half a 
laugh, as she realized that the words did not contain 
the consolation she wished to give. 

Beatriz smiled faintly. She could not resent any- 
thing from Anna. 

" It is the lack of means for remedy," continued 
Anna, " that makes me wild with grief for you. 
Doubtless you have a right to tend sick beggars, if it 
is a help. If Juan left me, I should take very quickly 
to an evil life in desperation." 

" Anna ! " exclaimed Beatriz. 

" Yes," she replied, tossing her pretty head. "■ I 
should look to a man to console me, right or wrong. 
I could not sit, like you, and eat my heart out." 

Beatriz rose, and placing her arm around Anna's 
waist, walked up and down with her in silence. In 
that embrace Anna's petulant emotion subsided 
little by little. She began to realize something 
of the seriousness and complexity of life. The 
problem which Beatriz was trying to solve touched 
her sympathetically. 

" We cannot say * I will,' or ' I will not,' " Beatriz 
said. " We have to accept a great 'Thou must.' It 



262 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

is the struggling that hurts the caged bird, and the 
caged will that beats against the bars. I must learn 
patience." 

Anna went home in tears, and Juan forbade her 
going again to visit his aunt. 

Beatriz kept on her lonely course uncheered by 
sympathy. Her patients recovered and left her one 
by one, and she did not attempt to renew her charity 
in the same way ; but the priest who was her confes- 
sor introduced her as a visitor at many sick-beds, and 
persuaded her to receive for convenience and protec- 
tion the robe of the Third Order of St. Francis. 

Beatriz shuddered as she wrapped herself for the first 
time in the coarse gray garment. It symbolized the 
power that had stolen her husband from her ; but she 
wished to put herself, as far as possible, in sympathy 
with his thought. She had not as yet been able to 
grasp it. It seemed an arbitrary and needless cruelty. 
She was convinced that the peril of shipwreck was but 
the flash that had fused a long- slumbering thought and 
wish into action. No moment of danger could lead 
Juan for his safety to vow to forsake Anna. What was 
the bent of mind which made her husband greater and 
yet weaker than other men, more vulnerable to injury 
while immovable in fortitude ? 

"It is the spirit of the Christ," she said to herself, 
weeping before her crucifix. 

Letters from Pedro gave a dismal account of affairs 
in the colony, though he wrote with attempted cheer- 
fulness. He described the formidable rebellion of 
Roldan, and the spirit of disaffection with which nearly 
all were imbued. Against this it was impossible to 
make headway. The Admiral, he said, was full of 



TIME'S CHANGES. 263 

ideas which, if they could take root, would insure the 
happiness and prosperity of the colony; but it was 
like sowing good grain in the path of a stormy tor- 
rent. Pedro complained of the way in which affairs 
were managed at home. 

" It is as if the devil himself were at the bottom of 
our griefs," he wrote. ** A spirit of hatred and evil 
dictates all that is done in our regard. The Admiral 
asked for the company of his son Diego, whom he 
wishes to train up under his eye as his heir, in the 
management of this business which none can do with- 
out special gifts ; but no answer has come, nor has any 
notice been given to this petition. The queen seems 
to be both deaf and dumb, where once she was eager 
with favor. Who is the implacable foe that stands for 
the devil and does his work? His name, methinks, is 
Fonseca." 

Beatriz had learned from Diego that his father had 
written for him to join him, and she was eager to know 
what the reply would be. She longed, yet dreaded, 
to have Diego go. She thought that the wish showed 
a yearning tenderness for some one to love and cherish. 
She wept to think that the current of this love was so 
entirely diverted from herself. A message now and 
then through Pedro, and a sum of money irregularly 
transmitted for her support, were her only tokens from 
her husband. 

Diego wrote that the queen had given him a prom- 
ise that he should go to his father. A month or so 
later, he said in a letter that nothing could be dis- 
covered with certainty at court. What the queen 
willed the king upset, or Father Boil would change 
by some new slander. He described the preparations 



264 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

made for a new expedition to the colony under the 
command of Francisco de Bobadilla. Diego did not 
know whether a place in the fleet were reserved for 
him or not. 

"The queen is to go to Seville," he wrote, "and I 
am to go in her train. I hope I may not meet the 
Jew whom my father justly chastised, for I fear that 
respect for the queen could scarcely restrain me from 
completing his castigation, though he has of late been 
made a very great man." 

Beatriz knew that a visit to Seville contained no 
promise of good. She was not surprised that the fleet 
sailed without Diego. As a compensation, the boys 
were allowed to make a brief visit to their relatives at 
Cordova on their way with the court to Granada. 
Rodrigo, with formal politeness, invited their mother 
to spend the time with them at his house. Thus the 
family was once more re-united ; but nothing was as 
it had been. The two boys were bright and brave, 
full of life and chivalrous courtesy, but Beatriz' s over- 
sensitive feelings noticed a change in them. As she 
clasped Fernando in her yearning mother's arms which 
had so long been empty, he returned her kisses with 
affection, but he looked, with a surprise which she de- 
tected, at her care-worn face. 

" I should not have known you, my mother," he 
said. "You are not as I remember you." 

" I should always know her," said Diego, with quick 
reproach, frowning at his brother. " She has changed 
no more than we have, and I am sure she would know 
thee." 

"Thou art right, my Diego," said Beatriz. "The 
mother's heart can never forget. My little Fernando 



TIME'S CHANGES. 265 

would have his mother always young and beautiful ; 
but time does not deal so kindly with us." 

" You are beautiful," said Fernando, " but you look 
like the picture of the sorrowing Virgin in our chapel 
at Burgos. You used to be like her." He pointed to- 
wards the gay young Anna, whose smiling face at- 
tracted him ; and she threw him a kiss with the tips 
of her fingers. 

" Thank thee, pretty youth, for the compliment," 
she said. " Thy mother is still far more beautiful 
than I. No one has ever given me the place of queen 
of beauty in Cordova. Should I look sad, I should 
be as ugly as the fish-woman in the square." 

" But you never do look sad," said Fernando, re- 
turning her coquettish look with frank admiration. 

" I am so happy now to have my boys with me," 
said Beatriz, with an effort at gayety, " that if I still look 
sad my face must be like the mask of the tragic muse, 
and hide the real feeling of my heart. Has it a look 
of woe that frightens thee, Fernando? " 

" Oh, no ! " he cried. " It is not in the least like 
those ugly plaster masks. You never could frighten 
me. You are my dear mother." 

These words were sweet to Beatriz ; but in spite of 
his wish to atone for his bluntness, Fernando wounded 
her more than once by little tokens that he had grown 
away from her. He was independent now of women's 
authority, and resented any attempt to treat him as a 
child. He wished to bid a formal good-night to his 
mother, and not to allow her the old privilege of 
tucking him into his bed and kissing him to sleep. 
He would kiss her hand with graceful deference, 
when she longed to clasp him to her heart. 



266 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

" Fernando puts on the airs of the court,*' 
said Diego, scornfully, noticing Beatriz's disappoint- 
ment. " He thinks himself already a grandee of 
Spain." 

*' I am the son of the Viceroy and Governor-Gen- 
eral," retorted Fernando. " Because thou art so 
much older than I, and wilt inherit the title, thou 
thinkest that no one else should bear himself with 
dignity ; but some day I shall be a great man too." 

" And a good man too, my darling," said Beatriz. 
" It is not thy father's titles which make him pre- 
eminent, but his character, which is like that of a 
saint." 

" But the people at court say all kinds of evil 
about him," said Fernando. " No one there calls 
him a saint." 

" But thou and thy brother — " began Beatriz, in 
a half-stifled voice. 

" We would fight for him to the last drop of our 
blood, eh, Fernando?" cried Diego, fiercely. 

Fernando nodded, with the lofty air which he 
assumed on occasion. 

" I love my father better than any one in the 
world ! " he said. 

" That is right ! " said Beatriz, though she felt a 
jealous pang. " Love him, and work for him, and 
strive to be like him." 

When the day of parting came, and a royal equerry 
brought two finely caparisoned horses to the door, 
and two mounted soldiers came as an escort for the 
boys, Fernando forgot his dignity. He clung to his 
mother, as if he could not tear himself from her 
embrace. He kissed her a hundred times. 



TIME'S CHANGES. 267 

" You are the one I love the best ! " he said. " I 
wish I need not leave you." 

Then it was Diego who reminded him of what was 
becoming in the queen's page, and Fernando rushed 
away to hide his tears. 

They were gone ; and Beatriz, with her son's kisses 
warm on her lips, returned to her empty home to 
weep and pray for him. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 



IN CHAINS. 



OINCE her marriage Anna had regretted that the 
^^ melancholy fortunes of her husband's family 
had prevented the series of gayeties which should 
have accompanied her wedding. Now that more 
than a sufficient period of mourning had elapsed, 
she insisted that a great ball should be given in her 
honor. Anna's youthful imperiousness was reinforced 
by the claims of great wealth. The ball was given, 
and Beatrix was bidden to it. She refused the invi- 
tation ; but Anna's personal entreaties, and Rodrigo's 
cold advice, that it would be for her honor and credit 
to be seen once more in her place among her family, 
decided her to accept what policy dictated, though 
her heart rebelled. With Teresa's assistance, she put 
on her well-preserved wedding-robes, and mistress 
and servant mingled their tears as the toilet was com- 
pleted. Her jewels had all been sold to aid her hus- 
band. Teresa brought the golden belt and bracelets 
which Colon had sent to his wife as the trophies of 
his first voyage. The barbaric splendor was wonder- 
fully effective in enhancing Beatriz's pallid beauty. 
When she entered the ball-room, every eye was 
turned toward her. The wife of the Viceroy was 
worthy of her rank. A group of admiring devotees 
immediately surrounded her. Anna, dazzling in sil- 



- IN CHAINS. 269 

ver brocade and diamonds, was for the time eclipsed. 
But Anna smiled like a woman, and Beatriz like a 
goddess. Anna loved admiration, and flattery was 
as the breath of life to her. Beatriz repulsed a too 
ardent glance by an impenetrable armor of reserve. 
Thus Anna's was the final triumph. 

All was gayety, laughter, light, and music in Rodri- 
go's grand saloons, when a rumor of evil tidings — 
started none knew how — ran through the brilliant 
throng, as if the first breath of a thunder-storm had 
blown in at the windows. Few were greatly moved 
by it, but all were surprised and curious ; and Beatriz 
became the centre of observation when the word 
reached her. 

" The Admiral Cristoval Colon has returned to 
Spain. Bobadilla has sent him back in chains from 
his colony." 

Beatriz ran to Rodrigo. 

"Is it true?" she asked. She stood with her 
hands clasped and pressed together upon her breast, 
which heaved with excitement. Her large eyes were 
dilated and brilliant, her lips were parted, a feverish 
color burned upon her cheeks. 

Rodrigo was furious with the smart of this new 
mortification. Was his family credit always to suffer 
from the unfortunate alliance with the Genoese ? He 
half turned his back upon his sister. 

" You should know," he answered over his shoulder. 
" The man is nothing to me." 

Antonia came up wringing her hands. 

" Anna is in tears," she said. " She regards it as 
an evil omen that her ball should end thus." 

" Let the ball go on ! " said Rodrigo. " The 



270 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

Genoese reaps the reward of his deeds, or is pursued 
by ill-fortune. Whether deserving or undeserving of 
pity, he merits none from the family he has wished 
to disgrace. I wash my hands of responsibility con- 
cerning him." 

The bystanders heard this declaration, which was 
spoken in a loud voice. Beatriz looked about, with 
the dignity of an offended queen. 

" I call Heaven to witness," she said, " that the 
man who sanctions this cruel injustice by failing to 
protest against it, shares the guilt of its perpetrator, 
which shall one day be punished with the wrath 
that God reserves for the slayers of his martyred 
saints." 

She left the room amid a murmur of curiosity or 
applause. In the servants' hall a booted and spurred 
courier sat drinking a cup of wine. Beatriz swept 
into the room, and the gaping domestics rose and 
made their bows. 

" What is the message that thou hast brought, and 
to whom sent?" she asked. 

*' I was bade by Dona Juana de la Torre to bring 
word of mouth to the family of Don Diego and Don 
Fernando Colon in Cordova," said the man, staring 
at the apparition of beauty before him. " She had 
a letter from the Admiral written on board ship. He 
was sent back with shackles on arms and legs." 

"Is this all the tidings thou hast?" she asked. 
"Does the queen sanction this barbarity?" 

The man looked as if he did not comprehend her 
question ; but he answered slowly : " I was to say that 
the Admiral is on his way to Granada." 

"'Is he still in chains?" asked Beatriz. 



, ^ IN CHAINS. 271 

" No, by my soul ! " said the man. " The queen 
was in a rage when she heard of it." 

This was all that could be extorted from the mes- 
senger. To every question he answered by the simple 
statement that the Admiral had been sent to Spain 
chained like a murderer; that the good queen had 
wept at the tidings, and that the Admiral was on his 
way to meet the sovereigns at Granada. 

Beatriz returned to her home, and divested herself 
of her robes of state. She put on the gray garments 
of a Franciscan Tertiary, and went out into the city. 
It was late at night. The stars shone in splendor; 
but the streets were dark and almost deserted. Be- 
fore a tavern door some men were gathered. She 
paused and listened to their conversation ; but it had 
no connection with Spain's fallen Admiral. The 
news had not spread far, or it had passed unheeded. 
She could not learn the details she longed to gain, 
from any uproar or tumult in the city which had 
been glad to honor the Genoese in the hour of 
his triumph, but had, it seemed, long since forgotten 
him. 

She stood before the episcopal palace, and she 
wondered if any dignitary of the Church would rise 
at her bidding, and thunder anathemas upon the 
heads of Bobadilla and his agents. All was wrapped 
in slumber. 

The queen had wept. The tears of royalty are 
precious, and the queen's sorrow promised a hope of 
better things. Surely, now the Admiral would be re- 
ceived with all his former honors, and his just rewards 
would no longer be denied him. But the chains ! 
Beatriz felt their weight on her own limbs. She still 



2 72 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

wore the golden bracelets that had been her hus- 
band's gift to her ; and to her fancy they became iron 
manacles wounding the tender flesh. She sobbed 
and wept for sympathy with the grief that she could 
not relieve. Dona Juana de la Torre had had news 
directly from the Admiral. No letter had been sent 
to his wife. 

"I am forgotten," thought Beatriz. "Useless in 
the hour of his degradation, as unnoticed in the time 
of his triumph.'' 

This last pain was the most poignant. Love longs 
to console. It is its chief prerogative. 

Beatriz's wandering footsteps had led her to the 
bridge over the Guadalquivir. She leaned upon its 
balustrade, and watched the water that lapped 
against the piers, flowing swift and silent and 
studded with the broken reflections of the stars. 
She started and turned her head, as a step ap- 
proached her. 

A Dominican friar had followed her unnoticed from 
the time that he had encountered her in the shadow 
of an arcade near the episcopal palace. He was a 
guest there, honored as an emissary from the Arch- 
deacon of Seville. He had a key to a postern door ; 
he knew how to glide in and out unseen. His lips 
still felt the touch of stolen, sinful kisses. His brain 
whirled from the efl'ects of wine. He staggered 
slightly as he walked, attempting to preserve the 
dignity of his robes, though his scapulary was awry, 
and his cowl had slipped back from his forehead. At 
the sight of the beautiful woman's face under the 
Franciscan hood, he had started and had eagerly 
followed her, until she paused upon the bridge. The 



. ^ . IN CHAINS. 2 73 

cool breeze from the river blew away the buzzing 
fancies that made his head so light. The touch of 
her tunic as it fluttered against his hand soothed 
him. 

" Beatriz ! " he exclaimed. 

She shrunk from him as if he were a wild beast. 

" It is you who have done this, Garcia de Silva," 
she exclaimed, — " you and your villanous patron, 
Fonseca. You follow me to boast of your triumph." 

" By Saint Rosa, I know not of what thou dost ac- 
cuse me," said Garcia, leaning his elbow on the bal- 
ustrade, and looking up admiringly into her face. 

*^0f my husband's ruin and disgrace," said Beatriz. 
"It is you and your helpers who have conspired 
against his credit, and have sent him back to Spain 
in chains." 

"What! Is he here, and in chains?" cried 
Garcia. 

"Do not feign surprise at your success," said 
Beatriz. " He who has given Spain half the globe 
is thus rewarded." 

"I had not yet heard it," said Garcia. "Thy 
messenger must have travelled swiftly. But I own 
it is sweet to me to hear this news, and from thy lips. 
Fate could not have given me to sup of a choicer 
morsel for the satisfaction of my revenge." 

" Would I were a man ! " said Beatriz ; " you would 
not dare to boast to me of satisfaction at such a time. 
The queen wept at the news. I hope she will avenge 
the outrage on the authors of it." 

" I am secure," said Garcia, laughing. " Neither 
thou nor she nor any one can detect my hand in the 
game. Thy mere suspicion proves nothing. More 
iS 



2 74 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

than one man in Spain will rejoice at Don Colon's 
downfall ; and if the queen weeps, the king, thou 
mayest be sure, laughs in his sleeve." 

"I cannot believe it," said Beatriz. "He cannot 
be so basely ungrateful." 

She turned to go homeward, and Garcia walked 
beside her. 

" How comes it that thou art out alone at such 
an hour ? " he asked. " Hast thou also taken holy 
vows? " 

"The vows of a Tertiary," said Beatriz, shortly. 
" You need not accompany me. The dress pro- 
tects me." 

"Ay, it is useful, — this masquerade," said Garcia, 
plucking at his gown ; " it covers a multitude of 
sins. But tell me how thou dost chance upon the 
bridge at such a time? Have I broken in upon a 
tender meeting?" 

Beatriz stood still, and looked the man full in the 
face. His bold gaze fell before the steady light of her 
eyes. He was shaken with an inward compunction. 
A memory of the past was mingled with a sudden ap- 
preciation of the pain and loneliness so nobly endured 
by the woman he thus wantonly insulted, — the woman 
he had once loved with pure affection. 

"Forgive me, forgive me, Beatriz ! " he cried. "I 
have been drinking wine. The demon that lurks in 
the wine-cup uttered the words through my lips. I 
would stab to the heart a man who should speak of 
thee as I have done." 

Here he remembered the evil hint he had given 
to Ximeno, and he felt once more the scourge of 
the furies. 



, IN CHAINS. 275 

"I am a sinner, Beatriz," he said. "I warned 
thee how low I should fall when thou didst refuse 
me hope. If I am lost, this self-elected saint, this 
Colon, is at the bottom of it. I hate him that I am 
so base. Why does he stand above me in righteous- 
ness, judging me for the evil of which he is the 
cause? " 

" No man is lost but by his own will and choice," 
said Beatriz. '' If you are not master of your speech, 
I will endeavor to forget your injurious words. Leave 
me now ; and if you would please me, let me never 
see your face again." 

Garcia made no reply. He turned aside, and 
watched her out of sight. Then he ran back to the 
bridge, and leaped upon the balustrade, clasping an 
ornamental pillar with one arm to steady himself, 
while he looked down into the black, gliding water. 
One plunge, and remorse would be silenced. Then, 
with a change of purpose, he laughed, shook his 
head, and jumped back again upon the bridge. 

"Not yet, not yet," he said. "The queen may 
reinstate the Italian in all his dignities. He may 
die loaded with honors; while I, the obscure friar, 
would be fished like a drowned rat out of the Guadal- 
quivir. The contrast does not please me. Thou, 
Garcia, must outlive the Italian." 

He walked away humming a tune. 

When Beatriz reached home, she sank, overcome 
by fatigue, upon her hard pallet. The night air was 
chill, and she shivered with cold. 

" I must go to Granada," she said to herself. " I 
can no longer live without seeing my husband." 

It occurred to her then that Doiia Juana's mes- 



276 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

senger might depart without a letter from her ; and 
she rose, lit a taper, and wrote to Diego, urging him 
to give her every detail of the sad news of his father's 
downfall, and the happier sequel which she looked 
for ; and she intrusted to his care a few lines for her 
husband. These she wrote and re-wrote. She wished 
to express the longings of her heart; but pride re- 
volted, and forbade the tender words which she 
blotted with her tears. At last she finished the fol- 
lowing note : — 

My Husband, — I am tortured to hear of the chains 
that thou hast worn as a reward for thy great services. 
The iron has entered into my soul as into thine. I suffer 
with thee. Wilt thou have me come to look once more 
into thine eyes, to speak with thee face to face.? Will 
it console thee to have my presence near thee.-* Send, 
then, the ring I gave thee, for a token, and I will hasten 
to thee with delight. 

Beatriz. 

The faithful Teresa arose in the gray dawn, and 
carried this letter to the messenger, who promised 
to deliver it without fail. 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

THE QUEST OF THE SEPULCHRE. 

nPHE Carthusian convent at Granada stood, era- 
-*- bowered in orchards and gardens, upon a beau- 
tiful height overlooking the valleys of the Xenil and 
the Darro, and the snow-capped mountains that rose 
in the distance. Its shaded garden alleys seemed 
made for quiet contemplation. 

In one of its rooms there was lodged, as a tem- 
porary guest, a silver-haired old man, who spent his 
days and nights in study and exalted meditation. 
Christoval Colon was a viceroy without a government, 
an admiral without a fleet, a governor-general without 
a province. The sovereigns had received him with 
sympathy, Bobadilla had been disgraced; but mo- 
tives of expediency were pleaded as an excuse for 
refusing Colon an immediate restitution of his rights. 
Two years must be given to allow affairs to readjust 
themselves. Meantime Nicolas de Ovanda took the 
abandoned government, at the king's command, and 
maintained in the colony a more than royal state. 
Promises were given in abundance to the deposed 
Admiral, — promises of a settlement of his dues, 
long unpaid, and of his restoration in the future to 
all his honors and dignities. Meantime the expenses 
of maintaining a viceroy's state at court had far ex- 
ceeded his means. One by one his suite had been 



278 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

dismissed. He had retreated for a time to the hos- 
pitable shelter of a convent. 

One summer evening he sat at a window with a 
manuscript volume open on his knee. His two 
sons — Diego, a man grown, and Fernando, a tall, 
handsome youth — were busily engaged at a table 
in copying on sheets of paper the closely written 
pages which their father had given them, in the order 
in which they were to be compiled in his great work, 
"The Book of the Prophecies." Suddenly Fernando 
looked up and said, — 

"Here is a mistake. This sheet of yellow paper 
has been placed here by accident, my father. It is 
an old letter from my mother. Do you wish to pre- 
serve it longer?" 

Colon stretched out his hand for the paper, and 
Fernando carried it to him, looking over his father's 
shoulder as he read it. 

" She speaks of your chains, — that sad and dread- 
ful time," said Fernando. " Tear up the old letter, 
my father. Let us forget that such things have 
been." 

" But how chances it that I read this for the first 
time?" exclaimed Colon. "Where has it lain for- 
gotten ? By whose hand did it come, and how has 
it miscarried?" 

Diego came forward, and looked at the letter. 

" I remember," said Diego, " that I urged Dona 
de la Torre to send my mother word of your return, 
and the manner of it ; and she did so. I also remem- 
ber well the letter which my mother sent me in 
return, and that there was within it an enclosure that 
was for you, my father. I carried it to you, and laid 



THE QUEST OF THE SEPULCHRE. 279 

it before you on the table. My uncles were here, 
and the queen had sent for you. I brought you her 
command and the letter at the same time." 

"Then it was placed unnoticed among my papers," 
said Colon, in agitation, looking at the intaglio ring 
which he wore on his little finger, and from it again 
to the letter, which he re-read with moistened eyes. 
" For nine months it has lain here unanswered. 
Write at once to thy mother, Fernando. I shall 
soon go to Seville, and from there I will again de- 
spatch a courier to her. By that time my dues may 
be paid to me. I have naught to send her now for 
her needful support." 

" Will you not send her the ring? " asked Fernando. 

" It is a token that I desire her presence," said 
Colon ; " when I am dying, Fernando, take it from 
my finger and send it to her." 

"Why can she not come to you now? " asked the 
boy; "she is sick with longing to see you." 

Colon made no reply. His fingers worked ner- 
vously. His look was far away upon the distant 
mountains. At last he said, — 

" My vv^ork is nearly ended. The Book of the 
Prophecies is finished. My poems are copied neatly 
by your hands. On my next voyage I will circum- 
navigate the globe, and, if God wills, achieve the 
ransom of the Sepulchre. All in my life moves for- 
ward to its destined conclusion. Thy mother, Fer- 
nando, has been my constant friend. I owe her a 
debt of gratitude which has been ill paid. But it is 
for her good that I refrain from adding to her grief 
by giving her a closer share of my sorrows. Could 
she see my weakened frame and whitened hair, her 



28o COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

tender heart would bleed for me, and the memory of 
the past would add a thousand stings to the change 
she would note in the present. God's grace has filled 
my cup to the brim. The cross that I have borne 
has been glorified for me, my self-sacrifice has been 
blessed ; but she has not walked with me through my 
agony ; she would misunderstand my love. It is better 
that we remain apart till death opens the door of the 
new hfe, where love is perfected in the bliss of the 
Lord." 

Tears rolled down the old man's cheeks. 

"Tell her, Fernando, that I love her well," he 
added, " and that her letter was overlooked by a 
grievous chance. Beg her forgiveness." 

He rose, leaning on his staff, and walked into the 
garden. The air was fresh and sweet with the per- 
fume of the flowers in the carefully tended borders. 
The sunset light flooded the snow-peaks with a crim- 
son glow. A young moon hung low in the sky. 
Colon stood alone in a little pavilion facing the 
west. 

Through the cheerful resignation of his disciplined 
soul there pierced a sword-like pang of sympathy for 
the sorrows of the loving and deserted wife ; and so 
complex are the springs of human thought that in 
spite of his self-justification he felt a deep remorse. 
The lower nature seemed for the time to rise and sit 
in judgment upon the higher. What right had he to 
dwell on the heights of spiritual peace which had been 
gained at the cost of a true heart's happiness ? 

" It was the will of God," he said aloud. Then 
he sighed and murmured, *^ Poor Beatriz ! God 
grant thou mayst find peace ! " 



THE QUEST OF THE SEPULCHRE, 281 

Six months later a fleet of four little vessels was 
ready to sail under the command of Don Colon, the 
Admiral. Once more he was to adventure himself 
upon unknown seas ; but this time he did not pur- 
pose to find the kingdom of the Khan. He was to 
sail in quest of the Holy Sepulchre. Instead of the 
army of a hundred thousand infantry and ten thou- 
sand cavalry which he had hoped to maintain in his 
pay, if his just dues were settled with all arrears, his 
command numbered in all a hundred and fifty men. 
He meant to penetrate the strait which connected, 
as he believed, the waters of the ocean-sea with 
those that rolled beyond the new lands he had found ; 
and to pass thence through historic water-ways by 
Arabia and the Holy Land to the object of his 
pilgrimage. 

Fernando had obtained his long-cherished desire. 
He was to sail for the first time with his father. His 
soul was full of the ardor of a young crusader. Noth- 
ing seemed impossible to his high-wrought fancy. 
He saw himself already with drawn sword smiting the 
turbaned Moslem with invincible gallantry, while his 
father rode as conqueror into the Holy City. 

Bartholomew Colon was also to accompany his 
brother; but he was cheered by no anticipations of 
success. He denounced the scheme as wild, foolish, 
chimerical, rash, and impossible. He had done his 
utmost to discourage it ; but, finding his brother re- 
solved to undertake the crowning purpose of his life, 
he consented to accompany him, and if need be to 
die with him on the wild, stormy ocean or the deso- 
late, unknown shore. Before he set out, he took Fer- 
nando with him to visit Beatriz in Cordova. 



282 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

The blunt, courageous Bartholomew had been cap- 
tivated by the gentleness and beauty of his sister-in- 
law. He chided his brother roundly that he could 
desert so lovely a wife to win the favor of Church or 
Pope, or the sanctity of a monkish frock. He urged 
him to go with him for a farewell visit to Cordova ; 
but Colon had an old man's fixity of purpose, and 
dread of useless agitation. Beatriz's tears would 
unnerve him, and add to the pain of both. 

Colon, however, drew up a will with the aid of a 
notary in Seville, with his two brothers and his sons 
as witnesses. He made every provision for the secu- 
rity of Diego's succession, and Fernando's allowance 
as younger son. He added a codicil commending 
Beatriz Enriquez to the care of his successor Diego, 
charging him to grant her a yearly pension. 

" My conscience as well as my estate owes a debt 
to her," he added, " which cannot well be told in 
words." 

The notary inserted this speech with the rest. 
Diego smiled as he pointed out the blunder. 

" Let it stand," said Colon. *' My obligation to her 
shall be thus perpetuated ; and thou wilt cherish her, 
Diego, as thine own mother, as thou hast ever done," 
he added, as he signed the will. 

" That I will, my father," said Diego, fervently. 
** While I have a maravedi, she shall not want." 

Bartholomew and Fernando made their visit to 
Cordova while the Admiral was busied with the prep- 
aration of the fleet; and Diego, who was not to 
accompany his father's travels, remained with him 
in Seville, 

The old house in the Court of Pomegranates 



THE QUEST OF THE SEPULCHRE. 283 

showed the unfriendly touch of time in its crumbling 
flagstones and moss-stained walls. 

'' How low the archway is," said Fernando, "and 
how small the courtyard seems ! It used to look as 
wide as the//^2^ in Seville." 

"Thou art taller, and the sky seems nearer," said 
Bartholomew, smiling. "Yonder is thy mother. 
Why does she wear a gray Franciscan robe? Is 
all the world become a convent?" 

He hurried to Beatriz, and kissed her frankly on 
the mouth. 

" My brother sends the kiss," he said. 
Beatriz blushed, and clasped Fernando in her 
arms. 

" My darhng one ! " she cried, " I did not look for 
thee to-day, though thy uncle promised to bring thee 
to me for a farewell. Heaven bless thee, Serior 
Bartholomew, for thus cheering a mother's heart ! " 
She had been working in her garden, and her lap 
was full of roses, which she held gathered together 
in a comer of her coarse gray tunic. 

" Thou dost look like Saint Elizabeth of Hungary 
with thy gray robe and thy roses," said Bartholomew. 
" All the world are gone after the monks. My brother 
Diego has made up his mind to enter a convent, and 
Cristoval might as well call himself a gray friar first 
as last. He would long since have done so, I know 
well, had he not this foolish notion of delivering the 
Sepulchre." 

Teresa brought wine and cakes to the patio, where 
they sat by the fountain, — Beatriz with her arm about 
Fernando, and her smiling look fixed on his face. 
" I call it a foolish notion," Bartholomew went on. 



284 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

" Not that I would not enter into the plan with a 
good will if we had the men and the means, and our 
charts were clear and plain ; but though Cristoval is 
at times a prophet, and sees with eyes different from 
others, in this case I count him liable to error ; for, 
in the first place, no one has dreamed of the strait 
he declares can be found. Should it exist where he 
places it, who can tell what waters lie beyond, or how 
four small vessels can reach them after buffeting with 
wind and wave an untold time. Should our vessels 
hold together, and the sea be crossed, how can weary 
and disheartened seamen encounter the forces of the 
Soldan? If we found rich gold-mines on our jour- 
ney, how should we load our vessels, and how trans- 
port the treasure an uncertain distance for the ransom 
of the Sepulchre ? It is as foolish as a dream ; yet 
Cristoval will have it that all else is of little worth 
compared with this, — that to die without attempting 
it would be to have lived in vain. Thus I go 
with him for the love I bear him, — hoping noth- 
ing but to reach home sound in life and limb, and 
wiser from experience, and to bring the lad again 
in safety." 

Beatriz tightened her clasp about Fernando. 

"You should hear my father talk ! " said Fernando, 
eagerly. " He has no doubts about it ; the strait is 
there, and we pass the gold-mines. It is easy to buy 
the help of the natives, and they will load our ships. 
If the Soldan will not take the gold, we can fight him. 
One Christian can kill a dozen Mussulmans." 

Bartholomew sighed, pursed his lips, and shrugged 
his shoulders. 

" Oh, Fernando, it is hard to let thee go ! " said 



THE QUEST OF THE SEPULCHRE. 285 

Beatriz ; " but I would have thee a brave man, and a 
comfort to thy father." 

"That I will be," said Fernando. 

"Thou wilt tend him in sickness as a woman 
would," said Beatriz, " and cheer him in moments 
of discouragement, remembering how hard his life 
has been, and how he has suffered for the sake of 
others ? Thou wilt hide thine own pain and sadness 
in silence, as a woman would, and forsake thine own 
ease to serve him? " 

" Yes," said Fernando. 

" Then I give thee to him gladly, my Fernando," 
said Beatriz ; " I who am nothing to him, can thus 
aid and strengthen him." 

Bartholomew coughed, and drew his hand across 
his eyes. 

"Cristoval loves thee, Beatriz," he said; "he re- 
membered thee in his will. Why his strange fancies 
keep him at a distance, I cannot tell. He never was 
like other men ; and now that his body is so feeble 
and full of pain, his soul seems to grow apace, and 
to carry him into regions of visions and heavenly 
voices, while he recks nothing of what passes abort 
him." 

" Is he so ill? " asked Beatriz, quickly. 

"Thou wouldst not know him," answered Bartholo- 
mew. " He looks to be a man of eighty rather than 
of sixty-six. His hair is white as snow, and his limbs 
so racked with gout and rheumatism that he must use 
a staff to walk with ; but he has a smile like a saint. 
His courage is that of a youth, and his mind is as 
vigorous as ever. He is fertile in resources, and 
endless in patience. He is a wonderful man." 



286 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

Beatriz sighed deeply. 

"Heaven does not protect its saints," she said, "if 
such a man must suffer penury and neglect, ingratitude 
and disdain." 

" It was on this account that I humored him at last 
in his purpose of taking this voyage," said Bartholo- 
mew. " He would be happier suffering the buffetings 
of wind and tide than bearing the indignities of men's 
contrivance ; and freer under the open vault of heaven 
than in the cramped lodgings of an inn." 

During Fernando's short visit he had no cause to 
complain that his mother was sad ; for his sake, she 
resumed her youthful gayety. She studied his hap- 
piness with such minute attention that the expres- 
sion of her features was trained to please him. She 
had learned to shake off her sorrow, or to hold it 
close and bear it without repining. The keenest pain 
she had suffered had been the most merciful. When 
months passed without a word or a token from her 
husband in reply to the letter she had sent to Gra- 
nada, she felt the grief of a wife scorned and neg- 
lected. Indignation was mingled with her sorrow, 
and her woman's pride revolted. 

When the atoning message came, and she found 
that she was still beloved, the bitterness of pain dis- 
solved in tears of joy ; but the strength that pride had 
taught her remained. Time, too, had worked its 
miracle of gradual restitution. The elasticity of her 
nature asserted itself, rejoicing in the mere fact of life 
and health. She had learned patience and humility, 
and she loved the coarse Franciscan robe which was 
the symbol of both. She discovered the pleasure 
that lies in little things. Flowers and birds, and the 



THE QUEST OF THE SEPULCHRE. 287 

phenomena of Nature, of which Colon had spoken 
with enthusiasm when she had been deaf to the 
meaning of his words, now became objects of interest 
and sources of joy. 

When Fernando and his uncle left Cordova, they 
carried with them the memory of her lovely face and 
gentle presence like the perfume of a flower, or the 
soft cadence of a tune that lingers long in the mind. 

"Thy mother is a woman of a thousand!" said 
Bartholomew to his nephew. 

" She is a saint ! " exclaimed Fernando, remember- 
ing the benediction of her kiss. 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 

LOVE TRIUMPHANT. 

npHE history of Colon's fourth voyage may be 
■*■ summed up in two words, — disappointment 
and disaster. He returned to Spain broken in health, 
and feeling, with the keenest regret, that the conquest 
of the Sepulchre was not for him. 

On a sick-bed in an inn in Seville he heard the 
news of Isabella's death. The noble heart that had 
sympathized with him had ceased to beat. Now that 
her influence and protection were removed, he fore- 
saw only too well the treachery, injustice, and cruel 
delay of broken promises which were to cloud his 
latter days. 

He travelled to Salamanca to win an audience from 
Ferdinand when almost too ill to sit upon his mule ; 
and the king, with flippant politeness, inquired about 
his gout, recommending certain remedies as suitable 
for the disease, and then dismissed the injured ser- 
vant of an ungrateful master with a wave of the 
hand. 

" Oh, Diego, my son ! " groaned Colon, when he 
returned to his inn, leaning on the young man's arm. 
" Put not thy trust in princes. Serve the Lord thy 
God, and look for his rewards ; but expect not justice 
or gratitude from men. I have left rules for thee to 
follow, if Heaven blesses thee with the restitution of 



LOVE TRIUMPHANT. 289 

thy just dues when I am gone. Seek first the ransom 
of the Sepulchre. It may be I suffer no more than 
the sorrow of David when the Lord denied his peti- 
tion that he should build a house for his name, reserv- 
ing that honor for Solomon, his son. Like David, I 
have gathered the treasures and the gold for the build- 
ing, though injustice denies me my own, and I have 
not now a roof to shelter me, or a real to give to the 
poor. God can change the heart of the king, and 
place the means within thy hands in his own good 
time. Thou wilt not forget this purpose, Diego? " 

" I will cherish it, and endeavor to fulfil it, my 
father," answered Diego. 

When Colon lay exhausted on his bed in the inn, 
he had a visit from the great Ximenes, now become a 
cardinal, and archbishop of Toledo. The cardinal 
had more than once shown his affection for the secret 
member of the Franciscan order, whose lofty spiritual- 
ity of character he ascribed to his own influence, 
aided by the Spirit of God. He felt a peculiar ten- 
derness for the man whose life of martyr-like sacrifice 
had found no earthly reward. Ximenes, with all his 
sincere self-abnegation, had risen to be a power in 
Church and State. Honors and dignities had been 
thrust upon him. Wealth flowed in boundless streams 
through his hands. The pathos of the life that was a 
failure in its noblest aims touched him more keenly 
in contrast with his own success. 

" Heaven bless thee, my brother ! " he exclaimed, 
as he gave the Admiral the kiss of fraternal affection. 
" Remember that the present is but a brief span in 
our allotted existence, which includes an eternal future. 
Lift thine eyes to the heavens ! Cherish the blessing 
19 



290 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

of inward peace with which God rewards his servants, 
and thou wilt not exchange thy poverty and thy pain 
for all the rewards in the king's gift." 

Colon pressed the hand of his friend. 

" It is not for myself so much as for my sons that I 
ask for justice," he said. " God has blessed me with 
the success he promised me. It is the king who de- 
nies me my own, won with blood and sweat. The 
price of the Sepulchre is mine, and he withholds it 
from me." 

** I will use my influence in thy favor," said Ximenes. 
" The Archbishop of Seville, Diego de Deza, has long 
been thy warm friend. Should the king bring the 
question of thy claims before the Junta de Descaigos, 
as he promises, I hope that our voices will prevail in 
the Council. Thus all is not lost. Keep up a good 
heart. Trust to thy friends, and above all to God, 
and to the friendship of the blessed Saint Francis, 
whose garb thou dost wear, and whose sainted fellow- 
ship will support thee through the power of that close 
union with himself. Hast thou not found it dearer 
than the love of wife and child?" 

" Ah, Ximenes, question me not in my hour of 
weakness and pain," said Colon. " I have had happy 
seasons when Heaven has been near and its love 
sufficient. Sometimes the old doubts and question- 
ings recur to me." 

Ximenes turned the subject, and began a cheerful 
conversation concerning the political affairs of the 
kingdom, and the changes which might be expected 
under the new queen, Juana, who had succeeded her 
mother upon the throne of Castile, and was soon ex- 
pected to arrive with her husband from Flanders. 



LOVE TRIUMPHANT. 291 

He described the grand preparations being made to 
welcome her. Colon's sanguine mind saw a new 
hope in the coming of Isabella's daughter. 

" Recommend me to her notice, Ximenes," he 
said. " If I am well enough to leave my bed, I shall 
go in person to welcome her. She surely will not 
neglect the man who was honored with the friendship 
of her sainted mother." 

Ximenes encouraged him in the hope of her favor 
and interest, and left his friend cheered with new 
expectations. 

When the court removed to Valladolid, Colon fol- 
lowed, — both to be near his sons and to press the 
consideration of his claims. They had been presented 
to the Junta, so the king declared ; and its decision 
must be awaited in patience, since so grave a matter 
required time for deliberation. 

Ximenes did not tell his friend that, to his certain 
knowledge, the Council had not been convoked, nor 
the subject referred to it. The king's word could not 
be gainsaid, even when it pleased him to lend its 
sanction to an absolute falsehood. Ferdinand no 
longer flattered and temporized. He believed that 
the hours of his tiresome petitioner were numbered. 
He was careless now whether he were cursed or 
blessed by the helpless and forsaken Viceroy of the 
Indies. 

One day Colon was seized with an attack of pain 
which rendered him for the time senseless and mo- 
tionless. His friends thought that he was dying. 
Diego, weeping, took the intaglio from his finger. 

"Dost thou remember?" he asked his brother 
Fernando. " Is it not time that we should send it ? " 



292 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

" Yes," said Fernando ; and Bartholomew, learning 
the meaning of the token, agreed with a mighty oath. 

''His wife should be here," he said; "it is her 
place." 

Colon recovered consciousness, and seemed to gain 
more than his former strength and cheerfulness. He 
was full of eager interest in the coming of the new 
queen, and the departure of the court to welcome 
her. " Thou must hasten to her, Bartholomew," he 
said. " As Adelantado of the colony, thou canst well 
represent my office. Declare to her my grief that my 
illness obliges me to forego the pleasure of joining my 
homage to that of the rest. Assure her of my loyal 
devotion to her and to her husband. Beseech her, 
for my sake, when time permits, to examine into my 
case, and urge the restitution of the rights conferred 
on me by her sainted mother, to whose place she suc- 
ceeds by the grace of God. Win her by all means 
to listen to thee, Bartholomew. She must have a no- 
ble and a generous heart. Simple justice is all I ask ; 
this she cannot deny me." 

The faithful Bartholomew left for Laredo to do his 
brother's bidding, though he took with him a heavy 
and an anxious heart. The Admiral, on the contrary, 
was full of cheerful enthusiasm. His two sons had 
obtained permission to remain with him, though he 
had urged them to go also to pay their respects to the 
sovereigns. The Franciscan brothers of Valladolid, to 
whose kind offices Ximenes had recommended the Ad- 
miral, were faithful in their attendance near his couch. 

" He cannot last long," they said to his sons. '' Do 
not leave him alone." 

Colon did not show by any word or hint that he 



LOVE TRIUMPHANT. 293 

realized the approach of death ; but he sent for a no- 
tary, and made a formal deposition of the will which 
had been written four years before. He signed it with 
his curious cipher, and then he said to Diego : " Re- 
member ! Fulfil all that I have charged thee." 

Diego made the promise with tears in his eyes. 
"Look from the window, Fernando," said Colon. 
" It may be that a courier will be sent me from the 
queen. If she resembles the blessed Isabella, she will 
hardly hear my message before she will melt into ten- 
derness, and will show an eager desire to atone to me 
for my long sufferings. It is the woman's heart that 
has the deepest appreciation of sorrow, and the great- 
est power of sympathy." 

He sighed and glanced at his little finger, where for 
the first time he noticed the absence of the intaglio 
ring. He started, and turned in the bed with a nervous 
motion. He opened his lips to speak, but remained 
silent, giving a quick glance at the faces of his sons. 

After this he showed more than ever an eager ex- 
pectation of the coming of a messenger. Every foot- 
fall on the pavement of the court outside caused him 
to start, though the inn-yard was full of noisy comers 
and goers. He required that one of his sons should 
maintain a constant outlook from the window. 

" Will she come? " he murmured one morning, as he 
woke from sleep, fixing his eyes full upon Fernando 's 
face. 

"The queen has sent no messenger," replied the 
boy. " It may be one will come to-day." 

Colon sighed, and folded his hands in prayer. 

" Send for the priests," he said suddenly. " I shall 
not last the day out." 



294 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

Fernando obeyed, with tears running down his 
cheeks. The good priests came, and surrounded the 
couch of the dying Admiral with the consolations of 
the Church. He begged to be clothed once more in 
the robe of Saint Francis. 

" Witness, all of you," he said, as he drew its folds 
about him, " that only the tumults of an existence 
devoted to travels and to arduous affairs, have pre- 
vented my making open profession of the Hfe which 
I embraced in secret. I have long been a faithful 
though unworthy member of the Seraphic Order." 

A footfall in the corridor without caused Colon to 
start and listen. He raised himself slightly in the bed, 
and watched the door with an eager gaze as it opened ; 
but he sank back on his pillows with a groan, as a cowled 
Dominican entered with a silent bow of greeting to 
all, and took a seat in a distant corner, where he re- 
mained with bent head, absorbed in telling his beads. 

The Franciscans watched him curiously, but he gave 
no explanation of his presence. They concluded that 
the Dominican was a friend of the dying man, — a 
messenger from Diego de Deza, — perhaps the emi- 
nent archbishop himself. His cowl shaded his face, 
so that its features could not be seen. His motionless 
attitude seemed to express deep grief. Colon was un- 
easily aware of his presence. He tried in vain to turn 
his head and question the intruder with a look ; but 
he gave no outward sign of his feelings ; and his 
sons, absorbed in their own grief, hardly noticed the 
new-comer. 

As the hours wore on, the Admiral failed visibly. 
The priests administered the sacrament of extreme 
unction, and the Dominican's voice joined in the 



LOVE TRIUMPHANT. 295 

prayers. Colon himself made the responses, but his 
voice grew weaker. At the end utterance failed him. 

The Dominican came forward, and knelt down by 
the bedside, close to the pillow of the dying man. 
He waved the others aside. 

"You have done your part," he said. " Kneel and 
pray for his soul. I have words of exhortation that 
are for him alone. I have travelled far to deliver my 
message." 

Then he said in a voice that no one else could 
hear, close to the Admiral's ear, — 

" Dost thou remember Garcia de Silva, whose life 
thou didst wreck by depriving him of the woman he 
loved, — the woman whose heart thou didst break in 
turn, caring no more for it when thou hadst gained it 
than a child for the flower he has plucked and pulls 
to pieces in his idle sport? " 

Colon groaned. 

Garcia muttered aloud the words of a Latin prayer. 

" Dost thou know to what a life of misery thou 
hast condemned her all these years?" he began 
again, — " what it is to a woman to bear the scorn 
and pain of unjust desertion ; how day and night she 
weeps for the past, fearing the future ? Has thy cold 
heart no knowledge of the torments of unrequited 
love?" 

The Admiral's lips moved, but his voice was not 
heard. 

"Has thy ambition satisfied thee?" continued 
Garcia. " Here thou liest forgotten. Where are thy 
riches? Who will remember thy name? Ovando 
holds thy dignities and thy place. He will never 
relinquish what he has gained. The king upholds 



296 COLUMBUS AND BEATRIZ. 

him. Thy son will strive in vain to gain a crust or a 
shelter for his head out of all thy pretended wealth ; 
for he will strive against the will of a king. Thou 
hast added to Ferdinand's domains, but he spurns 
thee like the lowest beggar who crouches at his door. 
Hast thou not deserved this? Thus didst thou spurn 
Beatriz." 

The Admiral's eyes were closed, but his eyelids 
fluttered. Garcia knew, by the look of pain on his 
mouth, that his words were heard and heeded. 

^' Remember the failure of thy purpose to ransom 
the Sepulchre and to convert the heathen. The na- 
tives of the Indies curse thy name. The soil of their 
unhappy islands is drenched with their blood. The 
torments they endure cry aloud for vengeance, but 
no deliverance comes. Hast thou not deserved their 
execration? " 

Colon groaned aloud, and opened his eyes. His 
sons ran to his side. The Dominican once more 
resumed his place in the background. 

" Throw the window wider ; give him air," said Diego. 

There was a sound without which only the Admiral 
heard. The door was flung open, and Beatriz entered, 
bursting upon the darkening vision of the dying man 
with the radiance of a heavenly messenger. She had 
flung aside her hood and mantle as she ran into the 
house. Her fair hair was loosened, and made an 
aureole of golden locks about her forehead. At the 
sight of her the Dominican rose and hastened from 
the room, disappearing like the blackness of night 
before the piercing arrows of the dawn, like the 
demon of hatred and evil before the dominating 
spirit of eternal love. 



LOVE TRIUMPHANT. 297 

Beatriz flung herself upon her knees, and clasped 
the dying man in an embrace which he knew was 
that of a human love full of power to strengthen the 
poor frame that is shaken with the pangs of approach- 
ing dissolution. The divine beauty of a forgiveness 
superhuman in its self-denial breathed in the tones of 
her voice, as she cried, — 

" Cristoval, my beloved, dost thou know thy wife, 
who loves thee? " 

A smile of joy transfigured the face of Colon. 

" Beatriz ! " he exclaimed, in a voice of tenderest 
intonation ; and as her lips met his in answer to the 
yearning of his look, his soul breathed itself out into 
the kiss. 

'' He is dead ! " said a priest, approaching the 
bedside. 

" May God and the saints receive his soul 1 " came 
as a wailing chorus from the lips of the Franciscan 
brothers. 

Beatriz arose, and stood in the solemnity of her 
silent grief beside the bed, while with a gentle motion 
she called Fernando to her side and leaned upon his 
arm, giving a hand to Diego as he stood beside her 
weeping. Love triumphant surrounded as with a triple 
shield the lowly bier of Spain's great Admiral. 

On the face of the dead man there had come the 
look of an ineffable peace 



THE END. 



MARTHA COREY. 

A TALE OF THE SALEM WITCHCRAFT. 

By Constance Goddard du Bois. 

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MONK AND KNIGHT. 

By the Rev. Dr. F. W. Gunsaulus. 

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several chapters, in which the author's descriptive powers are put 
to the severest test ; while the Waldensian heroes in their mountain 
homes, resisting the persecutions of their religious foes, afford 
some thrilling and dramatic situations. 



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SAVONAROLA, 

HIS LIFE AND TIMES. 
By William Clark, M.A., LL.D. 

i2mo, gilt top, 358 pages, $1.50. 
Half calf or half morocco, $3.50. 



Professor Clark writes in popular style, thoroughlv explains 
the intricate political system of Florence in its transition "state and 
succeeds in giving a well-rounded history of a man whose character 
will always be one of the most interesting in history to study. 

The whole story is compactly and simply told in this volume, 
and in such a fascinating and charming way as to delight the reader. 
As a contribution to a proper estimate of a life that presents so 
many difficulties to the historian, this study of Professor Clark's is 
especially valuable. — Living Clmrch, Chicago. 

This is one of the best pieces of biographical work that have 
fallen under our eye during the present year. The author exhibits 
a thorough acquaintance with the history of the age in which the 
great Italian reformer's life was spent. All the information con- 
tained in the pages of the most trustworthy authorities has been 
critically examined, sifted, and condensed into this work. It is a 
pleasure to commend work which has been so excellently done. 
The book is written in terse, forceful, and perfectly lucid English ; 
the style of the author is strikingly vivid: and the reader obtains 
from the volume a very satisfactory conception of Savonarola's 
aims, deeds, and influence. — Pz/^/zV Opinion, Washiitgton. 

^ The book is a very careful studv, kept candid and fair as far as 
it is possible for an enthusiastic admirer to be so. It is frank and 
fnl! also in reference to authorities. — Times, C/iica<^o, 

The volume covers just about as much ground as the general 
reader is likely to want, and is the best popular book yet produced 
concerning one of the most interesting figures of the last half of the 
fifteenth century. —^/or//, Nc7v York. 



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THE LAUREL-CROWNED LETTERS. 



The Best Letters of Lord Chesterfield. Edited, with an 

Introduction, by Edward Gilpin Johnson. 
The Best Letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. Edited. 

with an Introduction, by Octave Thanet. 
The Best Letters of Horace Walpole. Edited, with an 

Introduction, by Anna B. McMahan. 
The Best Letters of Madame de Sevigne. Edited, with 

an Introduction, by Edward Playfair Anderson. 
Each volume is finely printed and bound: '^mo, 

cloth, gilt tops, price, $i.oo. 

In half calf or half morocco, per vol., $2.75. 



Of Lord Chesterfield's Letters, the Atlantic 
Monthly says: — 

The editor seems to make good his claims to have treated these 
letters with such discrimination as to render the book really ser- 
viceable, not only as a piece of literature, but as a text-book in 
politeness. 

Of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's Letters, the 
Ne^o York Star says : — 

The selection is indeed an excellent one, and the notes by the 
present editor considerably enhance their value. 

Of Horace Walpole's Letters, the Philadelphia Public 
Ledger says : — 

These witty and entertaining letters show Walpole to bear out 
the promise of his fame, — the prince of letter-writers in an age 
which elevated the occupation into a fine art. 

Of Madame de S]&vign6's Letters, the Boston Satur- 
day Gazette says : — 

Accomplished, witty, pure, Madame de Sevign^'s noble char- 
acter is reflected in her writings, which will always hold a foremost 
place in the estimation of those who can appreciate high moral and 
intellectual qualities. 

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WIO 6 



LAUREL-CROWNED TALES. 

Abdallah ; OR, The Four-Leaved Shamrock. By Ed- 
guard Laboulaye. Translated by Mary L. Booth. 

Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia. By Samuel Johnson. 

Raphael; or, Pages of the Book of Life at Twenty. 
From the French of Alphonse de Lamartine. 

The Vicar of Wakefield. By Oliver Goldsmith. 

The Epicurean. By Thomas Moore. 

PicciOLA. By X. B. Saintine. 

Other volumes in preparation. 

Handsomely printed from new plates, on fine laid paper, i2mo, 
cloth, with gilt tops, price per volume, $i.oo. 

In half calf or half morocco, $2.75. 



In planning this series, the publishers have aimed at a form 
which should combine an unpretentious elegance suited to the fas- 
tidious book-lover with an inexpensiveness that must appeal to the 
most moderate buyer. 

It is the intent to admit to the series only such tales as have 
for years or for generations commended themselves not only to 
the fastidious and the critical, but also to the great multitude of 
the refined reading public, — tales, in short, which combine purity 
and classical beauty of style with perennial popularity. 



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EDUCATION and THE HIGHER LIFE. 

By the Rt. Rev. J. L. Spalding, 

BISHOP OF PEORIA. 

i2mo, 2IO pages. Price, $i.oo. 



Reading these essays, one feels urged to purer thinking and 
nobler doing. They incite to excellence of mind and to excellence 
of soul. To one who feels pessimistic, narrow-minded, narrow- 
souled, they come with joyous, faith-carrying words, which point 
and lead to those higher truths of mind and soul which are free 
from dogma of sect and creed, and which all lovers of the human 
intellect and the divine intelligence delight to study. — Public 
Opinion^ Washington. 

These essays are characterized by an elevation of thought, an 
earnestness of purpose, which are well adapted to stir the soul to 
nobler impulses and fuller consecration in the service of God and 
man. ... To all who are seeking mental and moral elevation, this 
book will give many helpful hints, — MetJiodist Magazine, Toronto. 

This is not a large work, but it is a practical and valuable one. 
It is full of nuggets of golden counsel. It is impossible to read 
the book without feeling that Bishop Spalding understands the true 
nature of education, which is not simply to stuff the mind, but to 
train it. We wish that the book might be read by the intelligent 
youth of our land. It would tend to enlighten their minds as to 
the best aims and purposes of life. — The Obsei-ver, New York. 

The aspiring young men and women of the country will find in 
these pages an earnest call to the higher life, — a summons to fix 
their attention on pure and lofty ideals of character, and ever ad- 
vance toward them with firm and courageous steps. — Ujiity, 
Chicago. 

The Bishop of Peoria enjoys more than a local fame as a 
learned and eloquent man. There are many things wisely and well 
said in this collection of essays. — Liviitg Church, Chicago. 

It is a plea for culture as a means toward attaining the higher 
life, and is a good word well spoken. — The Inquirer, Phila- 
delphia. 

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